Monday, June 22, 2009

captain dave's dolphin & whale safari

i'm gonna do it again. yup... more animal pictures. please humor me - i'm preserving memories. this is so much cheaper than scrapbooking! ;)

on wednesday of our vacation, we went on a safari. a dolphin and whale safari, which took us straight into the perilous heart of the wild seas of southern california, and included free brownies. if you're skeptical about captain dave's appropriation of the term "safari," hold the cynicism long enought read dictionary.com's definition of the term as "any long or adventurous journey or expedition".

was our safari long? long enough to necessitate a pretty serious potty break afterward!
was our safari adventurous? [gives a pirate-y laugh] read on!

we spent about 3 hours on a catamaran (... googling ... hey, i spelled it right!) searching for dolphins and whales with about 20 other people + captain dave. less than 30 minutes into our trip, we found a pod of 200-300 dolphins.

they like to ride the pressure wave of the boat, and would swim next to it. we listened to their squeaking and clattering "dolphin-speak" from less than 5 feet away!
all of these pictures are from our point&shoot. my "real" camera spent the trip wrapped tightly in a sweatshirt, since i had the awesome foresight to leave its weather cover back at joel's parents' house. drat.
after a few quality hours with the dolphins we went searching for a whale - 'twas the season for blue whale viewing. the closest we came to seeing one, though, was to smell its breath just after it surfaced. (just a freebie: "whale-breath" would be a great insult next time you need one.)

captain dave (chatting here with joel's mom) was super cool.
joel's mom & stepdad aboard our catamaran. (ha! i spelled it right again!)
conversation overheard while we passed these sea lions:
kid: mommy, why do they live on there and not on the beach?
mommy: because if they lived on the beach little kids would poke them all day long.

2 comments:

Tim and Heidi Thomas said...

I LOVE the comment that mom made to her son....that is absolutely hilarious. I love the pictures and am so envious of your vacation! It sounds like you guys had so much fun together. Looking forward to going there with you guys someday. Love, H

Rebekah said...

Little kids would poke them? I might be related to some big kids who would want to poke them if they got close enough. :)

And I wholeheartedly second the blogging as scrapbooking...or journaling...it's way easier, and way more fun.