Whalegate

I have a thing about whales.

I can't help it, I just do.  I think they're cool, I'm fascinated by them, etc., etc.  And my poor family indulges me in this, sort of.  We actually went on a cruise to Alaska a few summers back, under the guise of a post-eighth grade graduation trip for Joe (like it's a big deal to make it past eighth grade--pssshhh), so I could see whales and bald eagles. Oh, and so we could enjoy nature and marvel at the natural beauty of our 49th state.  Blah, blah, blah. But on said cruise we didn't take the whale watching excursions, so I had to be content to view said whales from the deck of the ship, 10 stories above the water.  It was good, but not good enough.

So when Mark announced that he wanted Skoog Family Vacation 2011 to take place in Santa Barbara, I got on santabarbara.com to see what sort of stuff we could do during our stay.  And there it was, right in the lower left hand corner: Whale Watching.

I was all excited.  The family, not so much.  But on Day 2, after carefully reading all the Whale Watching Literature we had available (a pamphlet from the company and info on their website) we dressed up in layers, ate a light breakfast, and then went to the dock.  As we stood there waiting (me, eagerly; the other Skoogs, not so much) with about 50 other people, most of them speaking different languages (and I'm pretty sure saying that my green jacket washed me out and made me look fat), the captain of the boat came up the gangplank and started talking.

"So, the whales have moved farther west and it's going to take longer to get to where they're feeding.  Plus the sea is rough and we'll be headed right into the wind. So if you have Dramamine, you should probably take it now.  But if you don't like rough seas and you don't like rocking boats, you should get a refund and come back another day.  Okay, who's ready?"

How bad could it be?  I thought.  I don't mind rocking boats.  Let's DO IT!

I scampered aboard the boat, the family followed, we sat through the Naturalist Volunteer's spiel about whales and their feeding habits, and soon we were on our way.

Then the fun started.

Now, I have to say, we met some delightful people on deck.  There was the honeymooning couple from Ireland who were both woefully under-dressed in shorts and t-shirts (they didn't read the literature, obviously) who told us all about their wedding and all the fun stuff they'd been doing since they got to America.  I loved how they said things were "brilliant" when they meant cool.  And there was my friend Oscar and his sister Olivia and their parents.  Oscar is four, Olivia's going into second grade, and it turns out that Oscar's daddy is some sort of Hollywood director.  It was Oscar's first whale watching expedition, and he was a little shocked it was my first, given my advanced age, until he learned I lived in Arizona and "don't they just have desert stuff out there? You don't have an ocean.  What do you do for fun?"  (Ah, if only my dad was a Hollywood director--then I would've grown up on a beach in Montecito like Oscar.) I told him I drank and gambled.  He seemed cool with it.

Now, I stayed glued to my seat on the top deck because I'm a complete idiot and I thought whales were just going to start jumping out of the water at random. (They don't tend to do that, btw.)  Apparently there were all sorts of hijinks going on below deck that I completely missed, but the kids and Mark witnessed first hand.

Yes, it got really, really bumpy.  And the wind was incredible.  Then there were the waves. At first, the people down below sounded like they were on a roller coaster, hollering "Eeeeeeee!" every time we hit a big wave.  Then, not so much, you know, due to the danger of being swept overboard by an errant wall of water and all.  One highlight for me came when the 300+ lb. heavily tattooed woman wearing a sundress and flip flops (again, people, read the literature!) tipped over and ended up in my lap. "My daughter's not feeling well," she said, like that explained...well, there was lots to explain but I don't think her daughter had anything to do with it. (After she got up and weaved her way to her seat, Oscar leaned over to me and said, "That looked very uncomfortable for you. Did it hurt?")

Mark came up to me a long way into the trip and said, "There's a family of Japanese Olympians downstairs.  I'm pretty sure they're gold medalists in synchronized puking."  Catharine and Joe tried to seek shelter down in the covered cabin but were greeted by a woman throwing up in her hand.  They turned around to make a speedy exit, only to come face-to-face with two Japanese people throwing up in the blue garbage cans on deck.  "And it was too late," Joe said, shaking his head. "I wanted to tell them that vomit isn't recyclable, but the damage had already been done. They're ruining the environment."

There was the Communist Snowman, a Polish boy all dressed in red and soaked from head to toe, who kept wandering around the boat, getting thrown back and forth like a pinball, munching on some foul-smelling sandwich.  He'd walk by a group of people, they'd get a whiff of him, and the sickness bags would come out.  It was like a scene straight out of a (bad) sitcom.

There was Plastic Surgery Lady who sat next to me, rubbing the recent scars behind her ears while mumbling, "I can't remember if they say it's a bad idea to mix Dramamine with Xanax, but I wonder when they're turning the boat around." Pause, eyes at half staff, then snapping open. "Can you walk?  Because I don't think I can.  I think the boat is moving."

There were lots of other people, too, most of them non-literature-reading Europeans who all looked like they were going to first freeze to death and then die from seasickness.  In that order.  But guess what?

We saw whales!

Actual, living, breathing whales!  We saw humpbacks and blue whales, along with sea lions and dolphins.  At one point a humpback whale started playing with our boat, swimming back and forth underneath it and breaching--our Naturalist Volunteer said that was unusual, and this whale obviously liked us.  It was awesome, and as I shared my unbounded enthusiasm with the other members of my family, Joe leaned over to me and said, "Mom, you know what this trip is going to be known as?  Whalegate."

Oh, no, I said, it hasn't been that bad, has it?

Catharine said, "Well, getting to see the whales this close is pretty cool. I think it's fun." (She's a trooper.)

Then I looked over at Mark, who was sitting on the bench, arms folded, with a big smile on his face. I was about to share my joy with him when I noticed his left hand.  His smile never wavered, but his middle finger, saluting me, told me that he was not nearly as enthusiastic as I was about the whale sighting.

The trip back was much smoother and way more uneventful.

The rest of the vacation was great, but suffice it to say, I was not allowed to suggest any more activities for the rest of the week.  Or, possibly, the rest of the decade.

But did I mention I got to see whales?