First, I must confess that I took about 250 pictures of the 3 (yes, that's three) whales that we saw. 77 (yes, that's seventy-seven) were of the tail alone. It's an embarrassment of riches, this digital camera with really large memory cards and batteries that last forever. It also makes me long for a larger hard drive.
When we first made plans to go to Boston, I knew there were two things I really wanted to do. One was to visit the Holocaust Memorial again, and the other was to go whale-watching. We did some research and ended up making Monday morning reservations for a whale watch out of Gloucester, based on recommendations from friends. Sunday night, there was a message for us that the morning ride was canceled due to rough seas. The good news was we could go on the afternoon one and get ten bucks off.
So, never minding the fact that we had 7 hours of driving ahead of us still, we decided to go ahead with the afternoon whale watch. And was it ever worth it! Just the ride out into the ocean was worth the money, even if we hadn't seen whales. It was fast and exhilarating (it just took me 5 tries to spell that right) and bumpy and better than any roller coaster ride I've been on! We found seats outside so we could feel the wind whipping our hair, but we were still sheltered from the spray on the port side. They closed the bow off entirely for the ride out, as it was just too rough to let anyone up there.
Then the whale sightings began, and I was bracing myself against the rail with my feet, and shooting away like crazy. It was a blast, trying to keep track of where he was heading so we could know when & where he'd come up next. And we got some great jumps (called breaches) and a ton of tail-slapping (the kid next to me counted nine in a row), and some rolling and spouting.
I'm pretty sure all the whales we saw were humpbacks, and most of the shots I got were of two in particular: Soya and Pinpoint. They were young (did you know that humpbacks can live to be 60 years old?) and feeling pretty frisky with the rough seas.
It was great fun and a little awe-inspiring to see these creatures that were spoken into existence by the Lord God. Just the ocean itself makes me stand in awe of God, who has set a boundary for it: this far and no farther. And then He filled it with creatures beyond our imaginations. And He made them, along with all creation, to cry out in praise of the Creator.
Maybe that's what all that tail-slapping was about.
2 comments:
Great pictures! My co-worker was looking at the blog with me and is absolutely amazed at your talent. She wants to check it out with me everyday she said. Wooohooo!
hey, I'm so glad! hopefully I won't run out of content now that my audience has increased by 25% (ha!) ...but Fall is coming, and with it some gorgeous color. Can't wait to start capturing it!
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