Boy, I'm tired. Duane Strosaker asked me if I wanted to go out on a whale hunt today, so at 10:00 this morning I arrived to a layer of fog at Dana Point harbor. Visibility was still pretty good and it was nice to think we'd have a break from the sun. We headed out through a quiet harbor and Duane told me I'd be leading this hunt. He wanted to sit back and have someone tell him where to go for once! We headed SW from the jetty and by the time we took our first break, my arms were feeling pretty tired. I don't usually lead paddles and with Duane behind me, I think I was trying to keep up too high a pace. He mentioned that he was having to work to stay up with me, so I was glad to realize I could slow down a bit. Because of the fog, I had decided to bring my $2 suction cup compass that's usually attached to my windshield, but it didn't seem to be helping me stay on a straight course. It didn't help that it wouldn't stick to the middle peaked deck of my kayak and so had to be stuck off to the side a bit. We may have wandered a bit, especially when we got to talking and I didn't bother to watch where I was going. We still made it off the point at our easier pace, but then someone stole our blanket of fog. The heat of the day rained down on us, with nothing much on the horizon to bring us hope. We continued on a westerly direction with a seal and some dolphins as the only hint of life around us. We were both feeling the heat and it seemed our hunt was going to be a short one. Duane had thought he'd seen something at our 12:00 and after a little more paddling, I thought I saw it too. It took a bit more paddling and staring before we were able to believe our own eyes--some health spouting perhaps less then a mile out. When you've been skunked a bit lately, seeing that first spout no matter how far out really make up for a lot of work and wonder. We start off at a good pace hoping just to get a little closer view if we could. After a short chase the whales came up again. Once again in this area, it seemed to be a mother and calf. Each large spout and breaching back would be followed somewhat from behind by another small spout. Each sighting spurred us to paddle farther out, but even though we got close enough for some good view, they always seemed to be heading away from us. We paddled through whale poop, which always seems to give you confidence you're in the right area. We chased them through about 8 different sightings in different areas, as the headed south and then disappeared and finally came up north of us at a pace we had no intention of trying to emulate. We were quite satisfied with our hunt, but now found ourselves quite far from shore and none the better for the heat and activity. We paddled home slowly, stopping often to hydrate. Duane, fearing I was about ready to percolate asked if I wanted to borrow his bow to roll a bit to cool off. I decided I might as well do my first off shore roll and although it took three tries, I was back up after my pause that refreshes. Of course, I tried again with less success and Duane had to hurry in with an ugly bow rescue that gave me plenty of time to cool off. After that it was just the long slog back to a harbor that seemed to be swimming away from us just like the whales. Neither of us are the biggest fans of summer paddling, but you do what you gotta do and we made it to the harbor with a bit of energy to spare. It wasn't the closest we ever gotten to the whales, but we had the satisfaction of a long chase and many sightings which brings the hope of more to come. Duane stayed at the harbor to do some rolling practice and I headed home to recuperate for my next adventure. Mark Sanders www.sandmarks.net *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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