[Paddlewise] Day #59, Longing for Leviathans

7/13/08

The 13th was not a lucky number for the 5 of us that set out behemoth
hunting this morning. Duane had called for an 8:30 launch from Dana Point
and while I got there first, I was soon joined by Kathy and Henry Pilcher
and Dennis Hyndman. Parking was scarce until the spaces parted to allow for
Duane's last minute arrival! Soon we all had our cars ensconced near our
launch site and were ready to hit the water.

Paddling out the harbor, it seemed prime WH conditions. We head out under a
sunny sky and by the time we closed on the end of the jetty, everyone was
sweating in the heat!! We were all glad when after rounding the jetty, we
found a nice ocean breeze to greet us. Conditions were a bit choppy though,
so spotting the Blues wasn't going to be as easy as we hoped.

We lost little time heading out to our usual hunting grounds. Plentiful
whitecaps and an occasional breaking wave had us thinking whales were all
around us. We took a couple small breaks and were just hanging out waiting
for some excitement, when we were encouraged to see the Dolphin Safari tour
heading right towards our location. They'd been having good luck spotting a
couple Blues lately, so we figured they had the scoop. The DS boat headed
off a bit west of us and seemed to stop to wait. We decided to nonchalantly
try to weasel our way closer to their position. We headed off parallel to
where they stopped and put a bit more distance between us and the coast. But
they never seemed to find anything and soon headed out past our desired
range for the day.

We decided to hang out for half an hour and hope for the best. The breeze
and the sun behind some misty clouds made conditions pleasant despite the
choppy water. We all kind of drifted apart as we waited and kept that
arrangement as we started paddling back to shore. Kathy and I were bad, as
we started heading out straight for the jetty entrance, where the rest of
the group looked like they were headed  right into shore. We had a large
chunk of ocean separating us, but I was hoping we'd corral the Blues right
in between us. No such luck.

We battled the chunky sea the way home. Off by ourselves, Kathy and I were
startled by a couple dolphins that looped right in front of our bows. Then
another pair came up to our side. We soon had dolphins popping up all around
us heading in every direction! It was impossible to know how many, but being
as they seemed  to be all around us, I'd say there were at least ten. They
followed us longer then either of us would have thought and then seemed to
head towards the other group, so we hoped they'd get a show as well, but it
wasn't the case.

The boat traffic and chop got worse as usual the closer we got to the mouth
of the harbor. Our bows were plowing through the surf, which I was glad for,
because one of the dolphins had got so close, it came up to do its 'morning
business'  on my foredeck and I was glad for the chance to wash it off!! I'm
surprised it didn't bring a newspaper!

Back in the harbor, we fought the strong wind down the channel with the
smell of the barbeques wafting by. We saw no whales, but perhaps clocked a
bit more time in our whale hunting karma to give us hope for the next hunt.
It seems most of the Blues have decided to skip our neck of the woods this
year and it's always a big ocean out there. Still it was a beautiful day on
the water with nice folk and the best dolphin show I've ever seen.

Mark Sanders
www.sandmarks.net

#
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