Unusual circumstances -- krill close to shore -- have brought magnificent blue whales for a protracted stay in the channel between Los Angeles and, well, the Channel Islands. So last Sunday Margaret and I on a whim took a whale-watching boat from Newport Beach to Two Harbors on Catalina Island, and back.
The marine layer was thick on the way out, and we only saw a pod or two of dolphins -- which is pretty cool, but we were looking for blues. The water was a little rough -- at least three people got sick that we saw -- and I couldn't shake from the back of my mind Susan Casey's book The Wave, which I reviewed for the LA Times.
But we made it to Two Harbors without incident, had lunch and a nice little walk around (saw a couple of buffalo), then boarded the boat under brilliant blue skies for the return trip.
And saw the whales. Magnificent. This is the best of the photos I was able to take. And this links to a Flickr stream of some of the others.
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The marine layer was thick on the way out, and we only saw a pod or two of dolphins -- which is pretty cool, but we were looking for blues. The water was a little rough -- at least three people got sick that we saw -- and I couldn't shake from the back of my mind Susan Casey's book The Wave, which I reviewed for the LA Times.
But we made it to Two Harbors without incident, had lunch and a nice little walk around (saw a couple of buffalo), then boarded the boat under brilliant blue skies for the return trip.
And saw the whales. Magnificent. This is the best of the photos I was able to take. And this links to a Flickr stream of some of the others.
Read More
