A whale of a tale

Yesterday we took the ferry to San Juan Island and then shuttled around. We went to Lime Kiln where there is a light house and so many whale sightings it's nicknamed whale watch park, but we didn't see any. We heard they were spotted about two miles south around American Camp, but too far to see. Andrew tripped on the rocks and split his lip open. We had hot dogs and sandwiches for lunch which cost 48.00 and decided it was time to headed back. We bought books in one shop for the kids and then left them in the next shop we visited. Luckily I purchased something there too and their number is on the receipt. They are shipping me the books. Did I mention it rained the entire day. Not our best day.

Today, determined to be better, we booked a whale watch tour. I kinda had in mind to do it, but it's expensive and we were hoping to just see them swimming naturally. It was worth it. We had what the guide said was one of the best days ever. The other tours were coming to where we were the viewing was so good. We were in the midst of the L and K pods. There were three babies born this year and one of them - a 2 month old whale was out to entertain us. There were multiple "breaches" where they jump out of the water, spy hopping - where they just poke their nose out, roll overs, and tail slaps. The whales are matriarchs and "Granny", at 98 years old, is still with her pod. She jumped three times, which was the first time our guide had ever seen her jump. The guides were excited. We stayed and watched the pod for about an hour and were going to head back and two whales started swimming right to us. We had to cut the engines (the have laws about how close you can be and speeds, etc) so we ended up viewing them for about another half hour. On the way back we also saw seals, porpoises, and three bald eagles.

They have a little grocery store called the market. They had a chef outside cooking samples with recipes and it was so good we scrapped our dinner plans and bought the stuff to make what he was cooking. They were steaks, so it wasn't too hard to change our minds. I've never had Bearnaise sauce on steak, it was good!

Then our little paddling dog - I mean harbour, seal swam back and forth across the bay all night long just like he was pacing. At one time he was about 8 feet from the shore. It was a good day!
tomorrow we head into Idaho for a couple days and then home.