Monday, March 1, 2010

Amazing Experience And No Pictures To Show For It!!

Matt and Addy and I spent the last week in Kauai with my family. Some friends of my mom had a time share there that they offered to let us use, so we took advantage of the opportunity. One of my favorite things we did there was go whale watching. I was feeling pretty excited about the idea of whale watching until I saw the boat we were going to be in! I thought it was going to be MUCH bigger that the dinky little inflatable speed boat thing that I saw out the window of our little rental van. I panicked because I am afraid of the ocean (sharks to be specific), and that boat looked like something a whale could just tip over! Anyway, I decided to face my fears and go on the trip. I am so glad I did! It was AMAZING!! First of all we saw two schools of dolphins! There were hundreds of them. I'm not exaggerating! They were so close to the boat that I could have reached out and touched them! Our captain happened to be a marine biologist and she said that for every dolphin you see on the surface, there are four more below. It was so exciting! We came prepared with our camera so we whipped it out to take some pictures and the dang thing was broken! It was so frustrating. The marine biologist kept saying "This never happens! You never see so many dolphins together at this time of day!" She may have been lying about that, but personally I believe her because she was hanging over the boat taking her own pictures and she seemed genuinely excited. Right after that we saw two whales breach off in the distance. I mean they came all the way out of the water and flipped! The marine biologist (Tina) said that they were males showing off for a female. So we start heading towards the whales and all of the sudden another school of dolphins come swimming by our boat! Off in the other direction we saw some whale spouts so we start heading in that direction. Apparently it was the perfect situation because there were about four whales trying to show off for the female and they were very focused on that so it was possible that they would come close to us. By law you are not allowed to come closer that 100 feet from a whale but if the whale comes close to you there is nothing you can do about it. So we get up there as close to the whales as we are allowed and they come closer. One went right under our boat. I didn't see that, Matt did. It's a good thing I didn't because I probably would have freaked out. The reason I didn't see it was because I was distracted by another whale like, I don't know 50 feet away or less coming out of the water! It was so amazing and I am so mad our camera broke! I have no pictures of Kauai! I am going to have to get some from my mom, and I will post more later!

2 comments:

Mary and Gary said...

Holy Cow Jen! That sounds amazing! Gary and I went on a cruise and we only saw a small school of dolphins and I like flipped out. I can't imagine being THAT close! Post some pictures as soon as you can! Did Addie get to go too?

Melissa and Lance Atkins said...

Man!! I am so bummed. I wish I would have known you guys were here! I live on Kauai! Where did you guys stay?