Saturday, June 24, 2006

Whale-spotting

A bunch of us went whalewatching today. It was really amazing! Sure, it rained most of the time and we were soaked in ways I didn't think possible (my jacket with its alleged Gore-Tex was suspiciously water-absorbent), but it was worth it to see whales in person, and in their natural habitat, for the very first time.

I also managed to have some quality time with my sock-in-progress on the drive up and on the boat to and from the whales' feeding ground. As with my other pairs, the second sock is taking way less time than the first; I've reached the gusset in about 1/3 of the time it took for the first sock (hopefully the sock fairy isn't tempted now to add a mistake in row 5, or eat the rest of my yarn, or something). I did have a slight project delay yesterday during the transition to the smaller needles, when I discovered that the smaller needles had vanished, but fortunately I had another pair in that size.

Here are some pics from today:

Still at the dock in Gloucester, MA.


A whale surfacing and blowing air.


It's a bit hard to see in this photo, but 3 humpback whales (including a mother-calf pair) were hanging out at the surface.


A whale diving.


A nice look at a humpback whale's fluke as she dives. Ocean Alliance, the group that works with this whalewatching tour company, catalogs and names the whales they see. The educators on board said individual humpbacks can be identified by the unique patterns on their flukes. I think this one was named Echo.


At one point there were 6 whales and 2 whalewatching boats in the area (the boat in the distance was just passing through). Unfortunately our camera doesn't have a zoom lens so the whales are hard to see, but I think they're between the three boats.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your shawl is amazing! What a beautiful pattern.

Thank you for sharing the whale watch photos. It's so nice to see the whales in their natural habitat. (And why is the weather always challenging on these trips?!).

YarnThrower said...

Those are great photos! It reminds me of my honeymoon, in which dh and I went to the east coast. I love being near the ocean, and it is lovely even when overcast! (And, hopefully not 90 degrees as you are trying to knit -- thanks for your comment on my blog!)

Your sock looks fun!

Warm regards!

Debi said...

VERY COOL PICS!!!!! I came over from Wendy's comments and I'm glad I did! Nice blog :)