Anniversary

It's our anniversary today. We've been together 8 years, but married for the last 3. The traditional gift for a 3rd anniversary is something made of leather. Not being traditional people, we opted for a more modern twist on the theme and went on a kayaking trip in an orca whale area hoping for a sighting.  We luckily found private campsites all three nights -it's a popular area for kayakers, so that is a rarity indeed (someone out there must have known we were "celebrating" our anniversary, and gave us our space).

The first two days we heard the reports on the VHF radio that the resident whales had gone north and south of us. We saw sea lions, porpoise, and plently of seals and birds, but no whales. At least I had lots of time to practice my new technique for getting in and out of a kayak with my expanding midsection.  On the final day we had just made a route adjustment due to thick fog that morning and forecasted strong winds for the afternoon.

We were just about to start back to the original launch site, when they made their grand entrance. I was actually in the outhouse when I heard my husband yelling from the beach. "There's a pod of 4 whales right in front of the shoreline".  I quickly came out to the beach to see them swimming off. We got in our boats and began paddling along the shoreline in that direction, and it wasn't long before they returned and swam around us for a while. We had about 15 minutes to enjoy them on our own before the whale watching boats descended upon us fully loaded with tourists hoping to capture a snapshot. At one point their boat was listing quite far to the port side because everyone was crowded in for a look.

We continued to paddle along the shoreline and the whales moved with us. It is such a spectacular way to experience whale watching. You hear them surface and breathe out a big poof of mist before you see them surface. Throughout that morning we saw a total of 4 different pods of whales. My fave of course was the mom and calf that swam in perfect synchronicity.

My husband pondered whether or not the whales would know that I'm pregnant. Apparently dolphins can tell with their sonar. I don't know, but they sure seemed attracted to us. I'll take that over a leather anniversary gift any day.