Yackity Yack

We took the kids whale and dolphin watching at Dana Point on Captain Dave's Dolphin Safari. It was something we wanted to do for a while but Taede wasn't old enough. He's still on the young side but what the heck.

Malia was excited and so was Kael. But then he thought about it and changed his mind. He was worried about sharks, pirates and the boat sinking. Or actually, it was pirates causing the boat to sink causing us to be eaten by sharks. I had to reassure him that there were no pirates, and as I reassured him that we weren't going to sink and we wouldn't run into any sharks, the thought did cross my mind that I was playing with Murphy's Law. Something that never works in my favor.

I was solely focused on the kids: I hope we see a whale, I hope there are dolphins, I hope Taede doesn't fall overboard... So I didn't put much thought into myself. Meaning: I wasn't properly drugged up for the trip.

The going out part wasn't so bad. But then we went out over 11 miles to find the gray whale. So it took a while to get there. Then we found the whale so the captain cut the motor. So we drifted along, gently rolling with the waves. Up and down, up and down. Just thinking about it now makes me queasy again. I managed to hold myself together; it's never a good idea to show any kind of weakness in front of the kids. Truong took the older two kids to the front of the boat for a closer look and I planted myself at the back, where there's the least amount of rocking. Luckily Taede was content to hang with me rather than wander the boat. I was so bad off that if my eyes wandered away from the horizon on the left side, I would be in immediate danger of yacking. So to the leftside I stayed. Apparently Lady Luck took pity on me and made sure the whale stayed on the left side of the boat. Because I gotta tell you: if it was on the right side of the boat, I would have been SOL (sh#t out of luck) and would have missed the whale sighting completely. I was. NOT. moving.

Taede was fascinated with the whale. Each time it went under, he'd point and babble to get it to come back up. Interestingly, the dolphins scared him. I thought the dolphins would be cooler because there were more of them and when they leaped out of the water, you could see their whole body, thus identify what they were. The whale was so massive that you could only see the top of it and quite honestly, it could have been the Lochness Monster for all we knew. As I ohh'ed and ahh'ed over the dolphins, I thought Taede fell asleep. But upon closer inspection, he had tucked his head into my neck with his fingers doing the peekaboo screen. I guess the sheer amount of dolphins freaked him out.

After a while I was not able to find the energy to enjoy the sealife. I was too concerned with holding myself together. Truong took the kids to the underwater pod to view the dolphins underwater so I was on deck by myself with Taede. My mouth started watering and I knew the situation suddenly became very dire. I frantically waved Truong over and literally dumped Taede into his arms. I didn't even make it 5 feet, much less the 20 feet it would take to get to the head (bathroom). Luckily for me (and everyone onboard) there was a waste bucket a mere 3 feet away. And I have to tell you: it felt good to let it all go. As luck would have it, everyone was still in front of the boat so no one was there to witness my humiliation. But honestly, it's kind of like giving birth: you don't care who's there to witness, you just want it done. Afterwards, I was still a little shaky but nowhere near the desperation I was at before.

I was never so happy to be back in the car, on solid ground. At least I know one thing for sure: cruises are definitely out in our future vacations.

Enjoy the pictures!

Whale and Dolphin Watching