Tales of whales

 Here is a series of three or four photos of a blue whale in San Jose Channel a few days after the encounter told below.

Many stories we collected along the way this summer made their way to emails to my parents but not to everyone. Here is a story from around October.

Today was the planned day to head out of Conception Bay and down to Caleta San Juanico, about 52 miles. We would have gone a day earlier but the winds today are from the north which helped us most of the way. It was quite bumpy for quite a while and Larry was nervous about me being happy. The conditions were nothing for him but he does not like to push me too far.

He gave me the opportunity to return to our calm cove at Santispac in Conception Bay.  Glad we kept going. It was uncomfortable for about three or four of the eight hours it took to get here. Fortunately we had following seas.  We had to tack many times on the way down and where able to sail most of the way.

Due to the wind angle, upon arriving we had to tack out away from the anchorage and not just go straight in. I said, "just start the engine and let's go right in". His comment, "harumph!" At Larry's request we sailed into San Juanico so all anchored could see our glorious sails flying.

The "just start and engine" comment was first uttered by my nephew John Michael when he was six years of age. We took him and his brother on a little Capri 22 on San Diego Bay. Larry was trying to go faster by adjusting the sails and JohnMichael says "Uncle Larry, just start the engine!"

Upon entering the Caleta San Juanico we saw a Blue Whale spout not far from the port hull in front  of the boat. Larry was struggling to see it and asked me to go forward to have a look. Due to
the sun angle we could see nothing. The last thing I wanted after eight hours of bumpy sailing was
a whale strike.

I hollered, "Start an engine!" So Larry started an engine and a half a second later a young 20 to 30 foot blue whale popped up in front of our starboard hull for air and head out of our way immediately.

Amazing. Beautiful. He/she put the peddle to the metal and swam from
our path. Sorry little guy....just did not want to hit you.