A Whale of a vacation wrap up....

So.

Are you still with me through all this vacation re-cap?  Awwwwww.  Thanks!  You rock! :)

This is the last day, I promise.

Day 4:

Day 4 started bright and early.  Well, bright anyway.  Early, not so much.

I had made reservations a few days before to do something that I have wanted to do for a long time.  Want a hint?  Ok.  Here you go:

I decided to leave from Cape Ann instead of Cape Cod or Boston because I figured it wouldn't be as crowded and besides, they all go to basically the same place anyway.  Now, I need to preface the rest of this by telling you that I was more than a little scared freaking petrified to go out on a boat in the middle of the ocean where sharks live and have been sighted in the past few weeks.  Big sharks.  Big sharks with big teeth.  Big hungry sharks with big, pointy, sharp teeth.  Have I made my point?  I was, however, willing to give it a go seeing as how the boat itself was fairly large and the chances of it, I don't know, sinking to the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean, were pretty slim.  Besides, I really wanted to see one of these:

I will tell you at the outset that this is one of the best pictures.  He never came completely out of the water.

Yep.  I went whale watching (and did you notice that my post title was a little witty today?  Oh come on, you know it was.).  I had the time of my life, contrary to how I look in this picture:

I hesitated putting this picture up.  Not only do I look ROUGH because of the sea-wind, but dang it!, it's like this picture is screaming, "Look, look at the 'girls'!!"  Please, don't.

Please disregard the death grip that I appear to have on the railing.  Well, I did have a death grip and I do look a bit, shall we say, apprehensive, but just ignore all that. I also ended up SOAKING wet, which they failed to mention might happen.  It totally surprised me and the rest of the day I was sticky from the salt water.  But let us not dwell on the unpleasentness, ok?  Instead, feast your peepers on these pictures:

Meet Grackle

A 13 year old humback whale.

Who was apparently VERY hungry the day we visited him.  Thankfully.

The naturalist on the boat said she estimated he weighed a lot of tons.

His tail is 15 feet wide.

He came out of the water 3 times to say hello.  I thought that was very polite of him.

I have a video, but for some reason I can't upload it.  I'll try again tomorrow, I promise.

I have to tell you, if you ever get the chance to go on a whale watch, do it.  It was incredible and amazing and thrilling and one of the best things I have ever been able to do.

Here are a few more random pictures:

I hope you have enjoyed my vacation re-cap.  Thanks for reading.  Tomorrow we will return to my regularly scheduled, normally boring life. ;)