Whale Watching - Newport Beach, CA

Hello Hello. Welcome to the 2nd week of February 2007. February IS the shortest month but yet the hardest to spell. Am I the only one who always screws up February by spelling it Feburary? I tend to cheat with ‘Feb’ as much as humanly possible. Thank Gates or whomever for spell check (boy howdy).

But you didn’t come here for my ungodly spelling mishaps, did you? Well then, moving on…

As the title suggests, I went whale watching this weekend. I had planned on doing a whale watching outing as a new event since December (an easy to spell month if you ask me) but never got around to it. Mostly I had assumed (enter ass-you-me joke here) that the only port that did whale watching close to me was up in Long Beach near the Aquarium. Silly, silly me. A quick search of the Almighty All Knowing Orb (a.k.a. the internet) proved me quite wrong. There is not only one but TWO companies that do whale watching a mere ¾ of a mile from my place of residence. Huzzah Me!

Kevin and I ran into our friends, Andrea and Roland (and their wee child, Oliver), the night before and they were more than happy to accompany us on our outing. Little children love boats. And fish! Unless they don’t, like the children who for whatever reason cry when they see Santa. Weird, strange children. But not Oliver! No, Oliver likes boats and fish and fishing rods oddly enough. I didn’t ask him on his take of Santa.

Due to an oversight of time, we almost missed our whale watching boat. But thankfully the people at the Newport Landing were kind enough to hold the boat for 5 minutes while we got our party together even though they did scowl a bit about it.


Area code '949' if you're interested.

The trip was around 2 and a half hours total and cost $25 per person. They promised that if we did not see a whale, or at least a dolphin, they would refund our money. To ensure that this would not happen, they immediately took us to a location 2-3 miles out in the Pacific where the dolphins were happily playing.

And it was really cool.



I’m going to stop the story telling at this point to tell you a quick story that Roland told me. Again his sentiments reflect my own. So I quote (badly) Roland who said, “My parents went whale watching once and showed us the pictures. Basically it was, ‘Here is where the whale WAS’ and ‘Here is where the bird WAS’ and ‘Here was where dolphin WAS’.” This is very true. I’m tempted to upload the 15 pictures I got of “Dolphin was here” shots. But I won’t. You can thank me later.


Dolphin WAS here. Oh wait! There it is...kinda.

After the dolphins we moseyed on further south. We eventually saw the spout of a grey whale but never the picturesque scene of the whale tail sinking into the water. The most we got was a quick glimpse of a back or stomach or something grey-matterish and that popped out of the ocean for a half second. I’m happy with that. After stalking the whale for an hour, we headed back to the dock. Roland and Oliver braved the cold and sat on the bow of the ship for the journey. Andrea and I went inside the cabin where we made a verbal wager on who the men’s bathroom door was going to smack into next.



By the way, if you do go whale watching this time of year, remember that although it may be close to 80 degrees where you are (sorry Midwest!) the ocean is no place for sandals and shorts. Oh sure, you may be all comfortable on shore but at sea you’re going to freeze your ass off. Just saying.

For yet another boat related new thing, this was all right. The dolphins were excellent; the whale…not as exciting due to limited visibility but still cool, and the trip itself was fun. I wouldn’t be opposed to going again, especially if I had a guest in town.