WOW! We Had a WHALE of a Day!!

 
John got up early again today because his cough woke him up.  I, however, was able to sleep in again until 8:15.  We had breakfast and I took Kylie for a walk.  It was a beautiful morning!  I wanted to spend some extra time with her because of the Whale Watching Boat trip we are taking today in Plymouth.  We decided to leave about 10:30 so we could do some site seeing before our trip.  So we packed a lunch and off we went.  We got to Plymouth about 11:15, parked the car, picked up our tickets, and walked over to the Mayflower II and Plymouth Rock... yes, I said Plymouth Rock... we finally found it!!  It was quite unimpressive!

This is the "shrine" built around the rock to
protect it from tourists who used to chisel off pieces.

There it is... not much bigger than a large bean bag chair!

 

 

Hopefully, you can read about the Rock
if you enlarge the pic.  It's interesting!

This is the Mayflower II an exact replica of the original Mayflower

 

  We stopped in some of the shops along the main street.  I bought a wire container shaped like a whale to commemorate our whale watching and a Cape Cod Lobster ornament for our Christmas tree.  I also made a "special" friend.

The Captain (my "special" friend) and me!



Isn't he a cutie!!

 

  We made our way back to the car to get our lunch and ate outside on a bench in the shade.  (It was hot out, but not humid!)

This was the roof of a realty company.

We spied these birds who looked like they were
waiting to hitch a ride out of the harbor.

  About 1:15 we made our way over to the dock where Capt. John's Whaling Boat was tied up.  There was already a long line waiting to board at 1:30.

Hi, Honey... we're almost there.

I got out of line to check out the fishing boat
that was unloading lobsters.



Look at them all.  I never knew that had those
rubber bands on their claws in the ocean!  :)





This is the Harbormaster's headquarters on the dock

 

  We boarded, grabbed a seat on the upper deck and off we went at 2:00. 

The flag was lovely and so was the breeze!

Everything was perfect... the weather, the beautiful ocean scenery, the lady that sat next to us, and the whales--all 12 of them.  It was a spectacular day!

A view of the dock area.

Lots and lots...

...and lots or boats anchored on the harbor!

Some neat houses along the Cape Cod side of the shoreline.
They are mostly summer homes that pay taxes to Plymouth
But have no city sewer, water, or electric supplied.
They rely on generators.

Pretty sand dunes...

...and ocean water.  Notice the lighthouse in the background.

What pretty pink sails!!

A local paddle boat giving tours of the area.

Here's a close up of the lighthouse in a previous picture.
It's there to protect boaters from running into the rock formation.

The only island in this area has it's own lighthouse.

The captain hung up this poster to show us all
The possible whales we might see.

There was a lot of ocean out there!!

This was our first sighting of a humpback whale calf.
It was soooo exciting!!

That isn't water shooting out of the whale's blowhole.
It's really steam because they hold their breath so long
under water it gets very hot is released as steam.
  Bet you didn't know that, huh. (Well, neither did I!!)



A male and a female and a calf off to the right.

Love the tail shots!  Looks like it's waving to the other tour boat.

A female and her calf.  They all had names.  The crew
identifies them by their tails after they are 4 yrs old.
That's when the whale's tail stops changing.

A calf rolling and basically playing according
to our crew.

The last 2 we spotted as we headed back to the docks.
The sky was beautiful!!

We look happy, don't we... it was so neat!!

Robbie, our Captain lowering the floats just before we docked.

We were back on shore by 6:00, all of us so glad we had decided to make the trip today!!  But by this time John was feeling pretty bad, especially since the boat ride back got rather chilly.  We both had taken jackets along but he was actually shivering.  We stopped at a CVS on the way home to pick up some cough medicine.   When we got back to Harvey we knew why he had been shivering.  Even though we don't have a thermometer with us, it was obvious he had a fever.  He took some ibuprofen and we ate some supper.  Heather and Cooper called.  We talked a while and Heather told me she may have found a half of house to rent in West York.  She just has to fill out an application and be approved.  We told Cooper all about our whaling adventure.  John took the nighttime cough medicine we bought and went to bed about 9:00.  I worked on sorting through the 550 pictures we took today, took a shower, and didn't get to bed until 2:00 am.  What is wrong with me???  I could hear John waking up numerous times before I turned in and he got up several more times after I came to bed.  We're not sure  what is on the agenda tomorrow.  It very much depends on how John is feeling, but I have a sneaking suspicion we'll just chill out here at the CG.