Whales!

Check off the bucket list: seeing whales in the wild. Awesome! As a Valentine's treat to each other, we took a whale watching cruise, and we certainly got to see some whales! Apparently humpbacks are not too fond of cold water, so in the winter they migrate from Alaska to Hawaii, where people like me get to fawn over them.


The child thing kept a sharp eye out, and it was only a few minutes before the sightings started! We spotted lots, but because we chose to sit at one of the few tables with glass windows (the boat was mostly open air) as it greatly reduced the likelihood of someone falling overboard, and because of all those other people who also wanted to see the whales, we didn't get a ton of great photos. But here's a really good one Scott took of a mama whale's tail and her baby right next to her:

And here's a shot of the top of a whale. I know in this photo, it looks pretty small, but that was definitely not the case! Our naturalist told us that when humpbacks are born, they already weigh about a ton! And the largest documented humpback whale was around 80 feet long! Wow!


Perhaps this is not the most traditional Valentine's Day outing, but, we had a great time, and what an awesome experience it was for all of us! And now I love whales! Almost as much as the turtles!