Monterey Bay Megapod – Humpbacks, Dolphins, & Sea Lions, Oh My! | Old Salt Blog – a virtual port of call for all those who love the sea.

I just got this in this morning from the old salts blog. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves ships and the sea. It’s at www.oldsaltblog.com. I subscribe to it and they send me emails with what they’ve recently published, (just like if you sign up to follow ME 🙂  –  hint, hint). There’s a link in the article to the Monterey Bay Whale Watch website. There are lots of interesting photos and videos there. I’d love to take a trip out there and go see all those whales and dolphins. I love to see all those beautiful sea creatures :-).

I’ve seen plenty of dolphins up close and I always love it when I do get to see them. They always seem so happy and carefree. They love to play in the bow wave of the ships. But I’ve only seen whales a few times in all my years at sea and never up close while I’ve been working.

The only time I’ve been on a trip specifically to see whales/dolphins was down in Argentina a couple of years ago. My gravatar is a picture of some dolphins I took on that trip. We (me and my friend B. who is also a chief mate- probably master by now) went out in those little zodiacs to hunt down some dolphins, locally they call them toninas or “pandas of the sea”. Commerson’s dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii) is the more common name for them. It was really great! Hard as heck to get any decent pictures cause those dolphins were fast as all hell! Plus the boat was very crowded. Here’s a closer look at some…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ja8ZSY-_n4E

We also took a trip out to the Valdes Peninsula to watch the whales. Humpback whales. They gather there to give birth and fatten up before heading off for distant waters. That was a great trip too. You walk down the broad, brown beach to climb aboard the boats they have pulled up in trailers for the night. They push you down the beach into the water and you’re off. Here’s a picture of us getting ready to go.

On the beach getting ready for a wild whale watching ride

There were a lot of whales around so we found a few different ones to get up close to. A couple of them had babies with them. It was really wonderful to watch the babies. They were so cute 🙂 Even tho they were just about as big as the boat we were on. Here’s a picture of the mother and baby…