Whales

We were having lunch in Fred's Mexican Cafe, at a table with a view of the water, when there was a collective intake of breath beside us - a whale sighting! Humpback whales are here calving in these warm waters, and we saw them breaching, spyhopping and surfacing to breathe. It was quite a show - hard to eat as you didn't want to take your eyes off the water and miss something!

Then in the evening we went to a free talk and powerpoint presentation by the Pacific Whale Foundation - and learned that 60% of humpback whales migrate here from Alaska in the winter; the rest go to the waters off Mexico/Central America, or Indonesia. It takes them 4 - 6 weeks to get here. A 45' humpback weighs 45 tons; the females are bigger than the males; the pectoral fins are 15' long.
Photo by gumption via flickr