NDBT

Thar she blows and all that. 🙂

So – after finding a fabulous salad place for lunch (mmm tofu) in the QVB, I went down to the dock to board our ship. I did the no frills cruise – no complimentary tea – just out to the whales and that’s it. But we went out under the bridge, past the opera house and all of Sydney – quite a nice harbor cruise. AND we got some really good views of an albatross and a huge shearwater on our way out.
Now here’s the thing – remember I mentioned the wind yesterday? Well, it was still very gusty today. And I hadn’t really thought about what that would do to the water. And normally the whales are between the mouth of the harbor and a mile out. Today they were about 2.5 miles out. So we head into open water and the boat was SERIOUSLY rocking. I went up to the captains’ perch to get a better view of the whales and he’s going, “wow I can’t believe this! This never happens. Would you look at that surf?” All very reassuring. We tried to get close to the whales, but our boat was having a tough time of it because of the waves. Finally we saw two come up and blow a few times, and then you could see one’s whole back and then she lifted her tail all the way up, so we got a very good view off the markings on her tail. So – this pod was surfacing every 7 minutes, so we wait around and they come up again, and our boat is being tossed ALL around. People falling over, chairs sliding across the deck, etc. At one point we go nearly sideways, so the guy comes on the intercom, very tense and goes, “okay guys, we’re going to have to say goodbye to these whales now for your safety. And comfort. Your comfort and safety.” So we turned around and headed back. It was a bit sad that we didn’t get very long with them, but we did get a really spectacular view of the one, and the cruise was lovely (the harbor bit anyways).

I was a bit cold from all the wind, so when I got back I curled up with a coffee and my book (A man lay dead by Ngaio Marsh – v. good so far). Then I grabbed a sandwich and saw Knocked up, which was laugh out loud funny and very cute. Paul Rudd is awesome. His background reactions make anything he’s in like 10 times better (who saw that coming when Clueless came out?) Although seriously – the girl doesn’t once consider abortion? What’s that about?

Oh yeah – they’re humpback whales, if I hadn’t mentioned that.

Oh – and check out the cat picture in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/nyregion/04cat.html

Is the poor thing not unspeakably terrorized??

Music: Everyday I love you less and less – Kaiser Chiefs, Sweet Sacrifice – Evanescence

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2007 at 3:05 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.