Close Encounters of the Cetacean Kind

Yesterday I mentioned that Bryanne and I were going whale watching. I thought that we'd have a nice cruise in the Pacific, and maybe see a few whales and some less lazy seals. We were up at 7:30 AM, which is not normal (at all) for me, and we had some very questionable quiche at the Bed and Breakfast where we're staying. Then we headed off to the wharves to hop on the boat that would take us a-whaling.





Leaving the harbor, we saw quite a few California Sea Lions and Cormorants, who mostly smelled bad and laid around---I've come to expect this from the Sea Lions by now. Mostly, they are glorified stray cats I think. They hang around the docks because they are safe from predators and tourists feed them, which is all pretty much anyone could ever hope for in life.





We rode out of Monterey Harbor at about 10-12 knots (I think), which put us about 15 miles up the coast after the first hour of cruising. Monterey Bay is an inlet off of the Pacific Ocean where a submarine canyon pokes into the continental shelf. The deepest parts of the bay are about 6000-7000 feet deep, and we turned west at about 10:30 AM and rode along the north wall of the canyon, in about 2000 feet of water.





The the deep, nutrient rich waters are very close to the shore in California, which provide the anchor for a very elaborate ecosystem. The plankton, which form the foundation of the food chain, are present in huge numbers, which draw krill, sardines, and a plethora of species of whales, dolphins, popoises, seals, sea lions, otters, sharks and fish. We were looking for humpback and blue whales this time of year, but at other times, gray whales, minke whales, sperm whales, and fin whales all visit Monterey Bay.


At about 11:00, the marine biologist on board told us that they had spotted some humpback whales---the easiest way to spot these guys at a distance is to look for their spouts as they come up from feeding. The humpbacks eat krill, which are basically little shrimp. But other things eat the krill as well, including sardines, which seals eat---seals, whales, and ocean going birds are all found in proximity to each other.




Eventually, the whales seemed to take an interest in our boat. As they slowly made their way over towards us, the marine biologists mentioned that, on occasion, the humpback's curiosity would compel them to "check things out". This is called a "friendly encounter" in the business. Images of Ahab danced through my head.






Instead of trying to give play by play on what, exactly, happened next, I will only say that it was pretty remarkable. I know what whale breath smells like (don't ask), and I got closer to these animals than most humans ever get. Over the next hour, the pod of about three humpbacks swam back and forth under the boat, occasionally popping up to see what everyone was on about, occasionally showering us in the boat with whale spray and krill bits, and occasionally pushing the boat with their heads and backs. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.









Enjoy! If anyone wants anymore pics, let me know---I have hi res copies of them all, and can email them to you if you like. I especially like the last one---note the rainbow.

West Coast Time

So, the point of this whole thing is to keep my family and friends informed about my adventures in life. Mostly, my dad doesn't know how to use facebook, and my mom doesn't know how to use a computer, so the idea is that my dad will dial up the web page, and he'll leave the computer on so my mom can read it before she goes to work.

That's the hope, at least.

Currently, I am living in Menlo Park, California, on furlough from Columbus, Ohio, and working at the very excellent Stanford Institute of Theoretical Physics. There will be, I'm sure, posts in the future about the beautiful Stanford campus, the charming downtown Palo Alto, and the mountain biking in the Santa Cruz mountains. Eventually.

But no, this weekend I am in Monterey, California, with my girlfriend for a short vacation. "Weekend" and "short" are very subjective terms in academia, one quickly finds out.

We left Menlo Park today at about 3 PM, and headed down California Highway 1, with the Santa Cruz mountains to our left and the Pacific Ocean to our right. I'm a sucker for salt water, and we had to stop and take some pictures about an hour into the trip.

The Pacific Coast is much different to what I'm used to---of course, we don't have any mountains in Texas (excepting, of course, the Davis Mountains out west), much less a rocky coast line. The vistas were breathtaking, to say the least.

We did see some very lazy sea lions, just sleeping on a rocky island just off the coast. They were doing what (I imagine) sea lions do best---that is, turning sardines into blubber and sea lion shit. This is, of course, their prerogative, but I would have liked to see them catch a fish or balance a ball or SOMEthing.

There was also this very tolerant seagull:

The bird aficionados will be quick to point out that this is actually some sort of albatros or something, and I'm just too lazy to look it up on wikipedia, and it looks more or less the same as the seagulls which live in Texas.

We are spending our weekend in the Centrella Inn Bed and Breakfast, located in the city of Pacific Grove, CA. We had dinner at a seafood place on Monterey Bay tonight, and watched the sun set over the Pacific. (Well, that's not exactly true. We would have seen a spectacular sunset, had we not stopped to take pictures of albatrosses and sea lions. But that's ok.) I had some halibut which was tragically overcooked, which kind of pisses me off. I had probably some of the better cooked fish that I've ever had in Columbus a few weeks ago (again, halibut), and I come to Monterey and get a piece of fish that's overcooked? Inexcusable.

Tomorrow Bryanne and I will go whale watching in Monterey Bay. She doesn't know this, of course, but I imagine that she'll have a great time, nonetheless. I went whale watching once off Montauk Point with my uncle Peter, but there were no whales to be seen---only some Yellowfin Tuna schooling. The rumor is that there exist "friendly" humpback whales, which like to circle the whale watching boat and check out the whale watchers. This is probably some figment of a whale watching advertising geek's imagination, but one can always hope. Other than humpbacks, we can hope to see blue whales (the big ones) and killer whales. There are occaisonal spottings of things like sperm whales and blue sharks, too. But, at the very least, there will be seals, otters and dolphins galore.

Satudrday will be spent at the heralded Monterey Bay Aquarium. This is great, because both Bryanne and I love aquariums. Pictures will, of course, follow.

I'll leave you with some nice plants which we found along Highway 1. They look particularly hardy, which is a function of the climate here, I'm sure. Either way, the flowers were pretty nice: