h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Being a fellow whale watcher, I too, have trekked out to the middle-of-nowhere to view whales. We set out of Boston harbor, not realizing that it would be a three hour tour to even get there. I was immediately reminded of Gilligan's Island and started looking around to my fellow whale watchers to determine who would be capable of making a coconut radio.

Once we got to the spot our guide said would be teeming with whales we stopped and lunch was served. Then quite suddenly someone yelled "There's one port side!" I was acutely aware of how lacking i was in nautical terms, so when everyone rushed to the left, I went that way too. We encountered a mother whale and her calf. They put on quite a show for us by the mother flapping her fins and the baby following her lead. It was quite amusing. We did also encounter a whale breaching on the other side of the boat. Breaching was another term for jumping high in the air during which time they take in large amounts of water in order to obtain food.

After these two sightings we were told we were to be on our way back home, as thier contractual obligation of finding whales was met. So it was another three hours home. By this time the excitement of finding whales had worn off and we all decided to take a nap, during which time we became very wind-burnt and salty. To this day I am impressed by how massive a whale actually is, but have decided not to pay $50 to view them for 20 minutes again.

That's a great story! It brings back a lot of what our whale adventure was like. I think we may have been looking for whales in the same spot- if not actually the same whales! Our excursion left from Plymouth and ended up miles out to sea off Boston. The person doing the commentary kept talking about flukes and such, but for a long time I was looking in the wrong place, because I'd underestimated how huge the animals are. We weren't fortunate enough to see any whales breach, but one did do a pretty impressive roll right alongside the boat.

I've never been on a whale watching trip but I did get to see a school of dolphins when I was in a speedboat once. they were swimming alongside the bow and it was quite spectacular just to watch them keeping pace with the boat without any apparent effort. it would be totally cool to see a great whale though, especially feeding. I saw a program about I think it was humpback whales recently showing how they round up the fish and confuse them. amazing creatures!

I've only ever seen dolphins from a distance. It must have been quite an experience having them swimming along with you. Where abouts did this take place?

The wales I saw were mainly humpbacks (near Boston, Massachusetts), but they didn't do anything dramatic, like sounding or splashing about, the way they are often shown on TV. The guide said that the sea was quite shallow where we were, so the wales were basically just hanging out together. Several of them did roll alongside the boat, though, which was pretty impressive. It's hard - at least I thought so - to get a grasp of just how enormous they are. How anyone could kill something so magnificent I can't understand.

JTG

Oops... That should be 'whales'. Pardon me, Llywelyn.

JTG