Whale Watching

Dave thought that taking the kids on a cruise would be fun, so we decided to try a 3 hour whale watch tour hoping that the length of the boat ride would not exceed the kids' attention span too much. Though the Newport Beach cruises were significantly cheaper, I was concerned about traffic and parking there. Since Long Beach is about half the distance and less likely to have problems with beach traffic, we went there for our cruise. We were promised some wildlife sightings with a strong likelyhood that we would see at least one whale. We boarded the boat and ate lunch. Joshua had his dream double peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Benjamin and Laura ate much of Mommy's and Daddy's sandwiches as well as their own.

After we got started, the kids enjoyed standing at the bow of the boat and watching the waves rush by. First we encountered a bunch of dolphins that enjoyed performing for us and then a sunfish, which was difficult to see because it was mostly underwater. Soon afterwards we found a mommy and baby blue whale pair. We saw them spouting water and swimming around. The captain of the boat managed to follow that blue whale pair around for a while until it was time to return to shore. In the middle of the ride, while everyone was on the deck watching for the whales, Benjamin and Laura decided to get seasick at the same time! Then Dave and I spent most of the rest of the ride inside with Laura and Benjamin napping on our laps. We were still fairly happy with the cruise (except for the kids getting sick)--seeing the dolphins and the whales in the wild was very exciting.