Whale Watching Cruise With a Land Lubber

Back in August, my parents celebrated their 40th anniversary. Before they knew most of the family would be surprising them for the big event, they decided they wanted to do a long driving trip to visit their kids and a few other interesting spots. They left Dallas on October 10th, headed to Mobile to visit my brother and sister in law, Jamie and Sarah, wandered up the east coast through some historic towns and then got to Boston on October 23rd. They insisted that I not take time off work so we just played over the weekend.

The most notable thing we did that weekend was to go on a whale watching tour. I have attempted a few times to go on a whale watching tour in my time living in Boston, but have always been hampered for one reason or another. This time, it actually happened.

Picture of Boston from the Harbor

While my parents both really enjoyed the experience, I can't really say I did, which was really a shame. We were on one of the season's best (per the crew) watches. The first whales we came upon was a group of 3. After I figured out that I just need to stake out a spot by the railings of the boat and wait for the whales to come to my side (as opposed to rushing to the side where they currently were and seeing a lot of peoples' backs), I saw some pretty amazing sites. The problem? I was feeling so incredibly green that I was not able to enjoy much. My strategy was to take a lot of pictures and hope that I got a few good ones to enjoy after I got back to good ol' solid land. So, here are some of my best shots.

3 whales here (blowing on L, tail in middle, back of one on R)

2 here (tail L and back R)

3 here (Back L, tail middle, back R)

The bottom of the tail has unique markings, which is how they're able to identify them.

After seeing the first group, I no longer could handle standing in a crowd. I headed back into the boat and sat down focusing on the horizon (I've been told that's how you're supposed to "fight" see sickness). When my dad came to check in on me, I wasn't improving so I had him grab a barf bag from the crew (they had been handing them out earlier). A wave of sickness hit me and I headed towards the bathrooms. After getting sick in the only slightly nicer than a port-o-potty bathroom, I returned to my seat to shiver uncontrollably for the next hour. (Mind you, there were many other folks sick on this trip as well so I'm not a complete whimp.)

During this time, the boat moved to a different area where there was a group of 6 or 7 whales. Apparently, that magnificent site is only experienced by about 1% of whale watching tours. It would have been nice to see, but I just felt so terrible I couldn't even rally to go see them. Bummer!

After a little nap during the beginning part of the trip back, I felt right as rain. Weird. So, I told my parents we needed to go out and take a few pictures.

My dad and I - downtown Boston in the background.

This might be my all time favorite picture of my parents!

Makes me laugh every time!

Wharf in Boston Harbor

In theory, we had an awesome trip. In actuality, I can't say that I had much fun and the likelihood of me doing another whale watching tour is pretty low. So, any of you out of town friends that want to do it while you're here (and if you're ok on boats, I highly recommend it), you're on your own! This land lubber is keeping her feet on firm ground!

Monday morning, my parents headed off to spend the week in NYC to return the following weekend to spend the weekend in NH and Boston with our Aussie friend Anthony.