Oh, warmth. Where have you gone?

Pardon me while I escape the reality of single digit temps outside my window and I relive my visit to San Diego last week. For those of you who are also snow-bound, maybe you can live vicariously through the images and know that warmth will one day return to you as well.

Today I’m reminiscing about a whale-watching trip that we took from San Diego out into the Pacific. I’ve been on a couple of these before, but always in the Atlantic off of Canada’s coast and always on smaller boats. The bigger boat definitely made for fewer people going to the rail seasick than on the smaller boats but I also found that it puts you a bit high for photographing the whales. Sure, you have a good view of them, but from a small boat your lower perspective shows how large they really are with their flukes breaking the horizon as they prepare to dive.

That said, it was a great day to be out on the water and the whales showed up right on cue and put on quite a show. We saw at least 10 or 11 and had a pod of 6 all together in the end. My 200mm lens was barely up to the task, however, as the whales are always some distance from the boat. The dolphins, on the other hand, would practically attack:

If it makes you feel any better on this January morning — it was chilly enough out on the water that you needed a jacket.

Sorry!