| 3/3/2010: Free Killer Whales |
Crew Update: Kate & Shorty have received really nice reviews from recent passengers. Shorty is a well-known captain on the bay. He impressed Kate not only with his knowledge of marine life and boat-handling ability, but especially his respect for the whales. This is a big deal to us; we wouldn't hire a captain who wasn't concerned with the animals we see, but it felt good for her to confirm it working with Shorty.
Shorty enjoys having Kate as a deckhand/naturalist because he can share the narrating duties with her, plus, she takes good care of the passengers and is as engrossed as he is in spotting. It's a good match.
Sea World vs. the World of the Sea
The death of Sea World orca trainer Dawn Brancheau was a tragedy. I know she must have loved her job and the animals she worked with, and she probably believed it was okay to keep killer whales in captivity. But she was wrong. Sea World is wrong. All theme parks who cage wild animals that naturally roam thousands of miles are wrong. Orca families, pods, are highly developed social structures. They mourn the loss of members of their pod. Individuals that are caught and removed from the pod miss them. This is a known fact, not a supposition.
How can anyone look at a theme park that puts these animals in the equivalent of a bit of spit compared with what they're used to accept it? How can the government allow it? Without the government's approval, the theme parks could not keep orcas in captivity.
David Tillotson and his family spent a good deal of time on the ocean with us. Many of the pictures on our web site came from his cameras. They got the picture in more ways than photographically. Read David's comments on their time on the ocean, and how he feels about Sea World and its ilk here (scroll down to Sea World Sucks).
He has included a link to orca footage he got with us. Most camera mikes aren't up to the task of filtering out wind, and David's is certainly in that boat, but you'll see what we saw and get a thrill from it. You'll also hear our reactions, especially David's and mine (I ran the trip that day aboard Princess of Whales). The YouTube link is also here, but please read David's comments; they speak from the heart.
If you don't believe killer whales belong in captivity, tell the government. Start with the National Marine Fisheries Service. Their email link for comments is: NOAA/NMFS Email.
You may also call Steve Meyers (ext. 174) or Brian Hooker (ext. 173) at (301) 713-2334.
Remember, if not you, who? If not now, when? See you out there, Heidi
12/23/2009 Holiday Greetings
[As many of you know, we have two businesses: Sanctuary Cruises on the Monterey Bay, and the Trinity River Adventure Inn river cabins in the north part of the state. This holiday newsletter covers both; it was written by Steph.]
Hi everyone,
You know how it feels when you get the sensation that all's well with the world? That feeling has settled over our cabin as I write this.
Heidi and I have just gotten back from working several hours at our Steel Bridge cabins. We've got different sets of guests coming in on Christmas Day and the day after and although they didn't request holiday decorations, we just couldn't help ourselves. Heidi just asked if the folks who will be spending several nights in the Miner's cabin requested a romantic place. They didn't, but she put tiny blue icicle lights in the rustic loft, wound a larger string of traditional (but LED, of course) lights on the porch handrail overlooking the river, and arranged three lighted twigs on the path to the front door. It looks great; if we were going somewhere cool for the holidays, it's what we'd want!
Heidi spent her time putting her typically artistic touch on Alpen Glow as well as the Miner's; lights, ribbons, Santas. I busied myself underneath the Miner's cabin, finishing up the insulation and plumbing jobs I started with the last cold snap. (You can read more about that in the next section. Never romanticize the lives of innkeepers.) While Scupper patrolled for squirrels, Bisco visited me about every 5 minutes; I'm not sure if it was to keep me company or to make sure I wasn't slacking off. The river sang its magical tune and reflected the cold, clear sky as we worked. Pretty darn close to perfect.
This year has been a roller coaster ride for lots of folks, us included. Our business on the Trinity has done very well in spite of tough economic times. For this we're so thankful to our many friends and guests.
Winter fishing has been good and we've got bookings throughout January. That's how to start a new year! We consider February to Memorial Day our off season and offer some great lodging discounts, so if you'd like to come up for some quiet time, consider that period.
In February, Heidi and I, along with our great friend Randy, plan to add another loft above the living room at Alpen Glow, making space for two more beds with a river view. Hear that, Randy?
Getting Sanctuary Cruises back has been another adventure, one that we've met with the help and good wishes of so many of you. The response has been gratifying and heartwarming. Based on that, we've just given a nice Christmas present to the John Deere Company, ordering a pair of brand new (and super fuel-efficient) engines and gear boxes, totaling around $84,000 (the Monterey Peninsula Air Quality Board has provided a grant for about half of the cost of this mandatory re-power, so we can only cry into half a beer rather than a full one; lucky us). And to think we thought we were spending a lot of money in the old days buying biodiesel! However, the new engines will serve us, the Monterey Bay, Sanctuary and you splendidly for many years to come.
Speaking of biodiesel, it's a good time to reflect not only on this past year, but our legacy out there. We were the first company to run a non-smoking boat. We were the first to consistently pick up trash on the water. We were the first to use biodiesel and continued to do so until we lost our supplier. We take immense pride in the appearance of our vessel and how well we take care of our passengers. The past blends seamlessly into the present and while we blink, becomes the future. We hope we can remain your favored whale watch company for many years to come.
I can't tell you how wonderful it feels when callers say, "We're so glad Sanctuary Cruises is back!"
It may not be easy to get the word out, but it is happening.
 Gray Whale by Ed Hughes
Gray whales are on their way by and our crew is anxious to take you out to greet them again this year. If you're jonesin' for some cool, although unedited whale footage, check the YouTube videos that Kate has posted recently. If you weren't on the boat when this was shot, you will definitely be envious! Here are the links:
Humpbacks & Orcas on Monterey Bay
Friendy Humpbacks at Sanctuary
This season has brought us something really wonderful. It started badly, however, with an accident on a sidewalk in Monterey. A.J. Young is a captain on the Little Mermaid, a tour boat working the inner harbor of Monterey. He's also the lead deckhand on Princess Monterey, operated by one of our competitors. He's quite a buddy of ours. Last week, A.J. was involved in a bicycle accident that could have cost him his life. But he's on the mend and for that we're so grateful.
Hey A.J., put a bike helmet on your wish list for Santa. If you don't wear it, I am afraid Heidi will drive down and put you back in the hospital.
Our wish for 2010 is for all of you to be healthy and happily engaged in whatever it is that feeds your soul. We hope to see you either here on the Trinity River, or out there on the Monterey Bay; we'll compare notes!
Bless you all this holiday season. Peace and the warmest of wishes, Steph (and Heidi, Bisco, Scupper, Chigger, Possum, Boy-Boy, Squid and Alvin Coolidge)
Winter Wonderland~The Other Side of Cold...and the Nutcracker Twice!
We've just been through a real cold snap up here and then had a few inches of snow. It makes Christmas seem all the more real and immediate. Our little neighborhood really turns out for the holidays. One of my big jobs of the season is to help our neighbor Dottie get her outside Christmas decorations up. Dotty lost her husband several years ago and I think this makes the fourth year that I've helped her out. What a kick she is!
The work begins around Thanksgiving and takes several hours, so I try to get an early start. It's really the start of the holiday season for me and I love it. Not one to have ever seen the inside of a health food store, Dottie offers me a variety of her favorite foods at 8 in the morning: Twinkies, Pepsi, Ho-Hos, Ding Dongs...you get the idea. This year she wanted me to come up with the "theme" for her display. "Theme!" I exclaimed. "It's Christmas. Shouldn't that be your theme?"
I'm not sure if the work I do for her is to help her further the neighborhood holiday spirit or just to keep her from burning her house down. I can't remember how many times that first year, looking at the tangle of frayed, jumbled wiring that I said, "Dottie, you just can't do this." So I re-work the electrical side and get the maximum amount of bangs for Dottie's buck, sans fire department.
The down side of a cold snap is the work it can produce at unwelcome hours. One of the real joys Heidi and I share is having coffee together in the morning, surrounded by our pets. Just as I was about to take her the first cup, after taking a propane torch to our pump to free the ice and get water flowing, we got a call from Alpen Glow. Mike Balog and his friends, here for their second visit, reported they had no water. He said it was the same for the Moys staying in the Carriage House. Here you can insert any and all foul words you've ever spoken. I said them all.
Keeping great, well-functioning cabins is really important to us. We understand how precious both time and money are these days. We tell guests that they can call us day or night if they encounter any problems, although our aim is to not provide them any reason to call other than to say hi.
I loaded my plumbing supplies and tools in the pickup and headed over. Mike and his group were gracious about it, one of them saying, "If we had the choice between heat and water, we'd go for heat." Still, water is gold. If it flows, you're a hero. If not, you're a zero. Imagine a day spent fishing on the Trinity, cold enough to freeze snot on a door knob, and you come home to no hot shower. Sub-zero points.
I trudged down to the pump house, which pumps from a cistern fed by a spring. The cistern was full, so the next most likely suspects were either the pump or the piping leading to the pumphouse. Realizing I'd need reinforcements, I drove home to roust Heidi. So much for that morning coffee.
I owe a huge debt to Rick Allan. He was our mechanic when we first ran Sanctuary Cruises and remains a great friend. Living in Cambria, several hours from the Monterey Bay, he couldn't often get away to help me with the problems that crop up on boats. I spent hours with him on the phone in the evening talking over how to attack them. Rick taught me to think in terms of systems, not just isolated problems. I came to refer to him as "The Master." I used Rick's system-wide approach, with Heidi's input, to get the water flowing again.
After a few very cold hours spent cutting back blackberries outside the pumphouse, digging up buried lines, slithering in contortions worthy of a gymnast on the wet floor inside the pumphouse and wrapping new heat tape along the frozen lines, then insulating them and the interior walls far better than before, we were back in action. Heidi and I both breathed contented yet frosty sighs of relief.
Heidi went home to make cookies and her famous pecan tarts to bring back to the folks who'd been inconvenienced. I stuck around cleaning up the mess I always make with any project.
[From Heidi: This is complete fabrication. Steph never cleans up his messes, which explains why much of my time was spent hauling out old water filters, wrappers, hose segments, ruined tape, cardboard boxes and more before we could get started in the pumphouse. I'm pretty sure Steph hung around over there to catch the fish stories and a stray beer.]
We attended two performances of the Nutcracker this year in Redding. The first was put on by a traveling troupe from the Moscow Ballet. The second was the 13th annual production by the Redding City Ballet and it just knocked us out. Who would have thought that an area this far away from a major population center could attract so much talent? This production featureda woman in the role of Mouse King, Rosannah Riess. She also trained in the SF Circus Center. She climbed a thick rope hanging down to the stage and blew everyone away with what she did.
I don't know how, but she appeared to walk up it, then twisted herself in it and hung upside down, then contorted herself and slid down, head first; then back up...
Then she wrapped her feet--all of this quickly and seemingly with no effort--and hung upside down in place at times, moving at others, spinning, then climbing... for what seemed to be 10 minutes, maybe more.
All this while a battle was being fought between her and the prince, then Clara. We couldn't watch anything but the Mouse King. Don't have a clue what else happened on stage. Simply amazing. Who could guess Redding City Ballet could trump Moscow's Nutcracker?! Check out her web site. On the home page, you can watch a YouTube of her aerial training. Stunning.
For you fishers, we're now finally getting some rain and according to the experts, that will get the steelhead on the move. Our Monterey neighbor Neal was just here and he caught a dandy steelhead. We have good availability the rest of this month and January. For those of you who don't fish, great back-country skiing is just a short drive away. A day trip to Redding to walk across the Sundial Bridge and maybe take your dogs for a hike on the wonderful trails on the other side of the Sacramento River is highly recommended.
If you just want to hang, who can resist the charm of sitting in a well-heated cabin, looking out at the river, having a glass of water anytime you want because it's flowing again!?
11/25/2009: Reflections on Our Customers & Crew
Here are several recent comments about our whale watching cruises: "Today we had 6-8 humpback whales; ideal weather and sea conditions; a great group of passengers; and to top it all off, several hundred dolphins (Northern right whale dolphins, Pacific white-sided dolphins and Risso's). We got great video of whales, dolphins, kids steering Sanctuary and a Mola mola (sun fish). A perfect day!"
"I love Sanctuary Cruises, I love whales, and I love people who love whales. This is my dream."
The second quote is from Kate, our deckhand. She's 23 and a recent graduate of the University of California Santa Cruz, where she majored in Sociology. Heidi asked me the other day, "Just what does a sociology major do?" Well, the answer's pretty obvious, at least in Kate's case. She's following her dream.
For as many whale watch trips as I've run as captain, I have always felt pressure. It doesn't subside until we've seen our first whale or encountered a pod of playful dolphins skimming alongside Sanctuary. In training crew, I've made it a point to transfer that feeling of pressure to them. Not many have lived up to our standards. When I've told one, "You don't ever stop looking for cool stuff for our passengers to see," and I watched that person gaze around absentmindedly, I checked him or her off the list.
When I've observed a potential deckhand look at a scrub brush like it's a foreign object and handle it like a piece of broken glass, off the list. When a potential crew member plops into the seat next to me in the wheelhouse and starts to chat, you got it...Off the list. That may sound cold, but every time I step onto the boat for a trip, I feel that pressure to perform.
That's why Heidi and I love to get emails like those we've just gotten. Our crew feels that same pressure and dedication to their work.. When whales are plentiful and close by, it's an easier task. When the seasons change and our summer whales follow their ancient signals to leave these waters, this dream job can become more work.
Kate scans the horizon until her eyes ache. She has learned the knack of looking far away and close by in the same constantly moving gaze, port to starboard to stern, port to starboard to stern. She notices the faintest of mists that might be the tail end of the final blow before a whale sounds. She watches for a distant bit of glare that might be sunlight reflecting off the back of a whale or dolphin for just a second.
 [Here's a picture of Kate with her brother; we let all kids take a turn at the wheel on trips, not just the ones we're related to.]
There are many things we can promise you. No, we can't guarantee sightings. But we can guarantee this: that behind the pleasant smiles and relaxed attitudes you see in our crew, they're always watching, conferring with each other, planning where to go and what to do next. They are there for you, and so have the whales and dolphins!
Never give up, never surrender. To infinity and beyond, Steph
11/13/2009: Questions We Ask
[Heidi has written our newsletters for years; she's taking a break while Steph jumps in.]
Fall in Moss Landing is a delicious slowdown. The buzz of summer is over. The big boats are back from fishing for tuna and swordfish. The crabbers provide the only real activity, busily getting their traps ready for the season opener, usually just before Thanksgiving.
We're fortunate in that we don't have to wait for a season to open; the whales operate on their own timetable, not humankind's. Very soon the venerable gray whales, most of which have already left their feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi Seas, will be passing by on their way to Baja.
The blues continue their year-long quest for food. We imagine that their voices are now booming across trackless miles of ocean, asking their kin, "Okay, looks like we're about done in Monterey. Where's the best krill now?" It seems like the humpbacks are staying here longer each year and coming back earlier from their winter breeding grounds.
We love to analyze our sightings and speculate on what we're seeing. Some marine biologists tend to sniff and call information like this "anecdotal," not worth a lot. Naturalists that we are, we tend to be more open, and some of the best marine biologists and oceanographers share this receptivity. We love posing questions we're mulling over, and sometimes passengers look at them with a fresh, innocent eye and come up with an intriguing possible answer.
I especially like to try to figure out blue whales. Years ago, in two successive great summers of lots of blue whale activity, I noticed that while feeding, blue whales almost always turned to the right after coming back to the surface to breathe; they described a large circle as they swam and took deep breaths before diving again. Why the heck would they choose that direction? Heidi thinks it might be as simple as most humans being right-handed; could blue whales share this trait?
Here's another one: The blues almost always feed in pairs. That makes sense, doesn't it? Perhaps that way, side by side, they can effectively corral and scoop up more krill. But add this one to the mix: When finally ready to dive back down to feed again, it was a real rarity to see both whales show their flukes. Almost always it was just one whale, and the same whale, who showed its flukes. Ponder on that one. Heidi and I have our theories, what's yours?
Last year about this time, the owner of Sanctuary Cruises posted the notice that fall was a time for reflection and that he was suspending business. For us, fall is a time of anticipation that we welcome. When will we see the first gray whale? Will the common dolphins be back in those huge numbers? Will the Humboldt squid return and bring with them the giant numbers of Risso's dolphins? (We saw pods estimated at 7,000 some days!)
And still farther: When will the first humpbacks come next spring? We hope you join us on these voyages of question and discovery. Remember, you are our cohorts in adventure.
By the way, comparing our prices with Monterey operators, we run a 4-5 hour cruise for $45 for adults. Our competitors are charging $32 for a 3 hour trip and $39.95 for a 2-2.5 hour trip. Whoee!
See you out there, Steph
10/2/2009: Orca Totem
 Recently, we had a young boy with a special affinity for Orcas on our boat Sanctuary.
He has cruised with us before, but he was just a little guy then. Now he is 9. He says Orcas are his totems, but he had never seen them in the wild.
We wondered what he might see on his cruise. He saw it all. His mother took this picture of an Orca swimming under our boat upside down. What an experience!
He and everyone else, including a woman in a wheelchair who was especially pleased with her treatment, had an incredible trip.
This photo blew us away, but then we got another one from the same trip, this time from Katharine Loeliger. As is often the case, the Loeligers go whale watching with us when friends visit from their native Switzerland.
This photo shows an Orca swimming right at the boat. You can almost peek down the blowhole. Wow. Maybe you're next to see such an astounding sight.
9/10/2009: The Picture of a Lifetime
Every once in a while, you get a chance to take a perfect photograph. You've come close to this, but it never was quite right. Maybe it happens when you don't have a camera. Maybe the wonderful action occurred just out of your range of vision. Maybe your timing wasn't quite right. Then there is that long list of Natural Disasters such as a dead battery, forgot to remove the lens cover, forgot the camera, lost the camera. We've heard them all and experienced at least a few ourselves.
But then it happens.
Everything comes together and you capture a photograph that seems impossibly perfect. In the case of these two shots taken by different passengers on the same cruise, a blue whale that rarely flukes raised its tail high and everyone aboard Sanctuary saw it from straight on. It bears so little resemblance to the flexible variations of a humpback's flukes, but looks a lot like a jet's tail. Diane Olson gets the roses for her blue flukes. One of the highest compliments I can pay her is this looks like a picture taken by Ed Hughes. Stunning.
Also on this day, a couple from the Netherlands hopped on Sanctuary in a serendipitous and spontaneous reaction to a flyer in their KOA packet. Like a lot of Europeans, they flew in, rented an RV and were touring the western states. They usually visit the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, Yosemite and the Monterey Bay.
Often, the glories of the other places are muffled when they see something like blue whales. But on this day, they also saw a giant leatherback turtle, thanks to the sharp eyes of our deckhand, Kate. Leatherbacks are huge, often 6 feet in length. Their heads resemble a football. In the past, I've said their mouths remind me of The Joker in Batman. But I have never seen such a clear picture of it until this one came in, forwarded by Dyann, who manages the KOA next to our harbor. Paul Verhage took it, and I wouldn't be surprised if he frames it and puts it on the wall to remember a remarkable day on the bay.
Here's something I'll bet you didn't know: the inside of a leatherback's mouth and throat have downward angled points that look something like teeth. They're made of keratin, like fingernails, and since leatherbacks feed primarily on jellies, it's pretty obvious the points help hold the jellies as they're swallowed.
Late summer and fall can give us our best sightings and best weather. This is why folks from Texas, Minnesota and South Carolina all recently made their pilgrimages to the Monterey Bay. Two more Texans are in the air right now, flying in for tomorrow's cruise. I'm pretty sure this qualifies as a mini-stampede from Texas, where temperatures of 90 degrees with very high humidity would prompt anyone with some common sense to grab a flight outta there.
Tickets are $45 for adults, $35 for kids 3-12 and under 3 is $10. You can make reservations by calling us at 530.778.3444 or email us with your number and we'll call you.
The experience can be magical, is always interesting and who knows? You may be the next one looking at the screen on your camera with a big grin on your face.
Things have slowed down at the inn and we have a little more time to enjoy the changing of the seasons. We watched the space station fly overhead the other night and the full moon paddle was a delight.
If sleeping late, wandering through the shops in Weaverville, wine tasting at the wineries and kayaking at the lake or down the lazy river appeals to you, come on up. That's what long-time Sanctuary Cruises passenger Alison Gude did and she is having a great time. She loves the Miner's Cabin and after settling in, asked us, "So, when do I get to move in?" My sister Jan and her husband Joe recently stayed there and they felt the same way about the Miner's. Jan said, "I don't usually use this term, but the Miner's is adorable."
Alison and Steph are just pulling in from their river run and me? Why, I sat inside typing this newsletter! Time for a frozen banana mocha beside the river.
See you out there, Heidi (& Steph, that good-looking guy on my left; took this picture when we returned from a whirlwind high country motorcycle trip this week)
8/20/2009:
A Big Fire Close to Home & Our First Weekend Back
Running Sanctuary Cruises
This was the view from our home the day before we were supposed to head south to run our first
whale watching cruise aboard Sanctuary in two years.
After a week filled with demands, we reserved our last day home for leisurely packing and a relaxing dinner by the river. Instead, we spent the afternoon calling part-time neighbors to see if there was anything they wanted to save in case the wind changed direction. The mountain in the picture above burst into flames shortly after noon. We had strong upriver winds that were troubling in their own right, but then the fire started. It began at the bottom of the mountain and within an hour had spread laterally along the highway and then up each of the ridges and canyons. While from this view, you see the old burn area from several years ago, the area beyond the ridge was densely wooded with a thick understory.
In minutes, helos with water buckets and tankers filled with fire retardant filled the sky. It seemed surreal; because of the helos, I kept thinking it sounded like a MASH unit with incoming traffic. As Steph set up the fire pump and rolled hose, I made calls to the part-time neighbors and established what to take in case of an evacuation (our animals, their food, water, computers, wallets, Coast Guard licenses, Rolodex) and what to leave (everything else).
Fire goes up, so despite the raging winds along the river, it thundered up the mountain across the water. Guests in Sow's Ear joined us on the shoreline and watched as the incredible air support worked to save the houses in the fire's path. These places had forest all around them and it seemed impossible they'd survive. We were less than a mile from 100 foot+ flames, but think of the deer, bears, coyotes, mountain lions, lizards, foxes and other animals running for their lives in this nightmarish scene.
That morning, I'd called friends who live in the old burn area across the river and arranged for guests at Alpen Glow to bring their daughter over to ride one of their horses. Now I was calling to offer to help evacuate the horses.
By early evening, with the fire still raging but the wind dropping, a guest and I were back out by the river when a brilliant blue streak shot past us. It sizzled as it went. It was over the river, heading down river, less than 100 feet in the air. It appeared to have been a flare, fired from the river access area across from us. An arsonist?
I called the police and Steph and I debated what to do before hopping in the truck with a few guns and driving over to the access parking lot. Let's take stock: We were looking forward to a badly needed break our last day home. Now we're packing guns into a lonely area and trying to figure out if we have an arsonist out there who is about to torch whatever isn't already burning.
We saw no one over there, but a cop drove by as we were heading back to our place, so we flagged him down. I told him I was the one who called in the blue flare. I expected him to doubt the sighting. Then a guy on a motorcycle drove up and asked if we'd seen the blue light. The cop said they'd reported the same thing down by the Trinity Fly Shop, a mile and a half from us. There was no way the light we saw went that far. The cop said others reported seeing it pointed at a helo. He came back with us and talked to our guest for her take on the blue light, adding it to a long list of reports.
All night long, the mountain burned. I got up every few hours and went outside. It was eerie seeing what is usually a dark area ablaze, the fire's reflection illuminated in the river.
 It turned out the fire wasn't started by mysterious blue flares; in fact, they remain a mystery. The fire was started by a drunk woman who threw or dropped a cigarette into the tinder dry grass. According to the paper, she had recently bombed out of her sister's as well as a rehab facility up here that has little to do with rehab. She was looking for her next disaster and she found it. Or made it. I am not without empathy for her, but what about the wildlife killed? The firefighters in harm's way? The people whose homes, while saved, are now surrounded by a burned moonscape? How many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars did it cost to fight this mindlessly set fire?
One of the best things about a community such as ours is that people jump in and help each other. We fielded calls from friends who asked what we needed. Some offered to help us evacuate after they learned our area was under a mandatory evacuation (no one told us, but we'd only have left if we felt we couldn't fight the fire; no matter what, we'd be safe in the river). My plan was to farm the animals and computers out with a friend a safe distance away. Even our guest at Alpen Glow offered assistance and stayed in touch through the evening for updates.
By the next morning, we had a long like of fire engines staged near us, waiting to tackle the fire on the ground, rather than by air. The fire had moved east and we felt okay, if not great, about leaving once we'd set up evacuation plans with friends for the cats in our absence.
It was time to shift gears and get ready to run our whale watching cruises, but we would not escape the smoke. After a 7 hour drive from dense smoke, we got to the central coast and...dense smoke.
There was a major fire burning north of Santa Cruz, including Bonnie Doon, where we have some cool friends (you may remember seeing their huge golden retriever Finnegan in earlier TRAI newsletters). They called us to make sure we were okay after going online to CalFire to see the status of their fire and finding ours in Lewiston. Can you believe it? What thoughtful people.
After a whirlwind of activity to get ready for the next day's cruise, Steph, the dogs and I dropped. We needed a good night's sleep, so we turned the cell phone off.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, the cell phone turned itself back on. Did you know that could happen? I heard the little "BLEEBUDULEEP!" and thought, "What in the world?" A little after that, there was the beep signifying a message had been left. Concerned the fire had changed course, we checked the message. Actually, there were several, all from the same passenger on the morning's cruise. Where, she asked frantically, are we located? Of course, when we tried to call her, there was no answer.
Next morning, we were at the boat early. Picking up after a 2 year hiatus is easier than starting over by far, but still, there were a lot of things that needed attention. At 9:45, we went up to the head of the dock to greet some great old friends and make some new ones. There was Carroll Briggs, who has been on so many cruises. A talented man, he paints and writes po etry about the ocean and boats. He's an actor and involved in local theatre. Beer-brewing buddies Rick Garcia and Steve Maeller were there, along with Steve's wife Marie, who loves sitting on the bow. We had Mary Brooks, who is such a kind spirit, and I was finally able to meet Laura Almada, whose love for Sanctuary Cruises alone could have brought the company back.
And we had the Van Horns from Chicago. Christopher would buy the company and move to California in a heartbeat, but his wife can't leave. Katie Huff recently moved out from Missouri and she brought her mom on their first whale watching cruise. We had two Dutch families who made me marvel at their ability to find and choose us; they so enjoyed the experience. One of them stayed at the RV park next to the harbor. Now a KOA, this lovely little park is thriving and a great place to stay when you go out with us. Imagine walking a few hundred feet to your boat!
The weather that day was okay, but not great. Boats farther out reported building winds and rough seas, so we were thrilled when I spotted orcas a few miles from the harbor. They would be the first of four different sightings of different individuals over the weekend.
We also saw some of the most cooperative humpbacks ever, as evidenced by this shot taken on Saturday; it's one of many beauties we all got. And we saw dolphins! Risso's northern right whale dolphins, and most unusually, common dolphins. Those are our winter dolphins, but we saw a large nursery pod of mothers and babies on two different days.
Some things never change. I brought our little camcorder that I use for videos of our cabins and river trips; I got some stunning footage especially of the orcas on our third trip. Then somewhere between saving them to the laptop and transferring them to the desktop, they flew the coop. We need a better camcorder for the ocean, so that's on our list of purchases. And I have resolved never to download video until I am sitting at the desk and can confirm each step.
That being said, I did catch snippets of the orcas from a farther distance and got some neat shots of the dolphins. Here is a 2 minute hint at the wonders you will see with us. Please take a moment to review the video on YouTube. It helps with placement, which helps others find it.
So there you have it. We're rocking again, people feel as though they've gotten a great friend back from the ozone, and we have whales and dolphins all around us when we aren't on the Trinity (up here, it's river otters, bald eagles, osprey and the magnificent pond turtles found along the way on our river runs; I guess the turtles missed the memo on their name). See you out there, up here, or somewhere along the way. Heidi
From the Archives: 3/25/2007: K & L POD From The NW and Mating Gray Whales~all in one day!
 You know how someone tells a story and then takes a deep sigh and says, "You shoulda been there"? Well, last Saturday's cruise certainly qualifies, although most of our cruises have been great lately.
First, the crew found some gray whales who had paused in their northbound migration to fool around.
Then our deckhand was the Queen of the Bay when her sharp eyes spotted orcas no one had noticed and it turned out to be a huge and historic gathering of two Northwest salmon-eating pods.
Every boat on the bay was singing her praises!
Music from Big Pink
Anyone remember The Band's album "Music From Big Pink"? Big Pink was a pink-painted tract house in which the band members lived back in the 60's, but on the ocean, there is another kind of Big Pink and we had a gaggle of happy passengers on Sanctuary to witness the show.
Mating is slippery business for whales. The water can toss them around, there is nothing to hold the animals in place and sometimes the female acts as though she's not sure she wants to be part of this team.
Even if she is receptive and sidles up to the male or rolls upside down and he tries to mount her, he often slides off before the home run. Because of this, his penis has to get creative and will search for the female's genital slit and this can be a very public display, as you see here..
 Nicknamed "Big Pink," the whale's penis often appears to be waving hello, which it is, but not to us; and hello is just the beginning of his message for the female. We celebrate mating whales because they indicate a good chance we will see a calf the next season as a result of their seaborne ecstacy.
When we're in the company of mating whales, we give them a wide berth and watch from a distance because they have an important job to do and we shouldn't disrupt it.
Orcas Here, But Not For Baby Gray Whales!
After leaving the gray whales, our deckhand spotted what looked to be killer whales in the distance. We were all traumatized over the story told on "Whale Attack," where the orcas attacked a gray whale calf and even its mother, so a huge influx of orcas in the spring might have given us the willies.
But it proved to be a most historic visitation of both K and L Pods, 2 of the 3 fish-eating killer whale pods from the Northwest! The picture at the top of this newsletter is one of MANY Bruce Naliboff took which are coming in a CD.
There were babies, many sub-adults and a lot of adults. Noel says every way he looked there were 5 or 6 up at a time and they swirled around in a mesmerizing dance.
Diane Bystrum was on board and bless her heart, she emailed a short video, which I am not sure what to do with. I have to figure out how to post video.
Diane loved the cruise and here's what she said,
"I just wanted to thank you again for the amazing trip on 3/24!! Not only to see California Gray Whales mating, but to then be surrounded by 20-30 [could have been over 50] Orcas was truly tremendous. I will never forget it. Thanks again and I will definitely use your company in the future."
This is a GREAT time to go whale watching. You may see humpbacks, gray whales, orcas or several other kinds of dolphins. You may even see all of the above.
Plus the sooty shearwaters and black-footed albatross are out there, along with otters (nearshore), sea lions, harbor seals, cormorants, herons, egrets and more. See you out there, Heidi
About the Photographer
Bruce Naliboff and his wife Candace have been out with us many times and he has shared a LOT of great photographs with us and you, our readers,
Last Saturday was Bruce's birthday and he chose two things to celebrate it: A California whale's tail license plate (which says "Protect our oceans" on the bottom) and whale watching with Sanctuary Cruises.
I can't help wondering what Bruce and Candace might have experienced out there if he hadn't ordered that license plate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The NW Pods are Back in California Waters
Back in January of 2000, we were treated to a visitation by "L-pod," a salmon-eating pod of killer whales that usually lives in the Pacific Northwest. It was quite a thrill because of their numbers (possibly 50 or more) and the fact they'd never been seen south of Gray's Harbor, Washington before.
The question surfaced then whether this was good news. On one hand, it proves they can and will extend their territory if they want to. Or is it that they need to? Has their staple food, king and silver salmon, become so depleted up north that the killer whales have had to move to find more food, or was their expedition for another reason? Kind of a "You don't know if you don't go" thing; Columbus would have understood.
This question popped up again with the recent sightings of TWO of the NW salmon-eating pods of killer whales along the California coast. "K" and "L" have both made appearances.
Ken Balcomb is the founder of the Center for Whale Research and he has 30 years of experience studying "K-pod." He has a positive I.D. on some of the pod just photographed off California and believes members of "L-pod" have also been in the neighborhood.
We have lost a lot of killer whales in the last several years thanks to human impact on salmon habitat, but an equally lethal curve has been thrown to them from our pollution. Top-of-the-line food chain predators such as orcas absorb the toxins in everything they consume and the fat-soluble toxins are the worst because they stay in the system. There is no flushing action to purge themselves of the poisons except for one and there's a tragic irony to it: Mothers feed their calves fat-rich milk and that milk is laced with the toxins.
No wonder they're looking farther from traditional home waters for their food, if that's what they're up to. Could it be that this endangered species is adapting using the age-old business strategy of diversification? If so, it could be taken as good news that they're in our waters. Let's hold a good thought for them and work harder to make sure our ill effects on killer whales decrease.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Fish, Habitat and Where We Go From Here
Commercial and sport fishers alike seem to spend a lot of their time wondering if there will be any fish to catch the next season, year or decade. It isn't worry without substance. Degradation of habitat doesn't just affect one species and we are not all that far removed from the impact of bad practices in distant places. While the salmon-eating forays of the NW orca pods may be good news for them, can it also mean there will be fewer fish for fishers?
My life has intertwined with salmon and steelhead for several decades. When I moved to Oregon in the late 80's, I walked the streams in the fall and watched salmon fight their way up to their headwaters. Captivated, I stared into the clear, cool pools as they dug their redds. On one particularly beautiful day in October, the sight of a tired, spawned out salmon waiting to die--its skin mottled and battered and its fins frayed--caused me to burst into silent tears, which I can still feel as I write this.
My first year in Oregon, I decked on pukers, charter boats that primarily fished for salmon. I wondered at the abundance and cautioned my friends, captains who had grown up with the bounty of the sea, telling them it couldn't last forever (it didn't). On Columbia River tugs, we occasionally got an anonymously delivered steelhead from gillnetters whose horrible nets caught and killed the un-targeted, illegal catch. Rather than wasting the fish, they'd toss it on our deck in the pre-dawn morning and then call us on the VHF radio and say, "Check your aft deck."
Now that I live far from the ocean, the fish and I still share waters. Just the other day, Steph and I sat outside on our bank and watched several salmon mere feet from our eyes. Sometimes they nose into the bank and wave their tails gently, holding in place as the clear, clean and cold water slips by.
The Trinity River is renowned for its fish, and salmon and steelhead lead the illustrious list. Last week, the San Francisco Chronicle did a great piece on catch and release fly fishing right where we live. I posted it on our web site for the Trinity River Adventure Inn and you can read it here or go to our Trinity web site later. The article said restoration of the Trinity was simple. The river had been starved of water that was shunted off for agriculture, decimating the habitat for fish. The solution was, "Just add water." This river is thriving now, but record-low rainfall this winter has us worried. What next? While we enjoy a good flow even in drought years, we can't help wondering how it will all work out for wildlife.
The fish are fed by these enchanting waters and in our own way, so are we. This morning, Steph and I tried a new hike along the lake that feeds the Trinity and it was rejuvenating after the days of internet and accounting hell I have been in. Tomorrow, we'll return with a camera to show you more of this very special area.
If you haven't yet signed up for Sanctuary Cruises and/or Trinity River Adventure Inn updates, you can do so by clicking on the link above and subscribing.
Most people understand at least some of the far reaching ramifications of habitat destruction and pollution, but for those who don't, here's an easy analogy. Take a handful of twigs. Make a triangle using 3 pieces. Keep building the triangle up, laying one stick over another. Now try to pull just one stick out of the bunch and see what happens.
It doesn't have to be a big stick and it may have seemed an unimportant stick, but when it was pulled out, most likely the whole thing fell apart; or maybe a good chunk of it collapsed. Could you have predicted where the impact would be felt the most or better yet, once you're looking at the fallen heap, could you fix it without starting over from scratch? When tinkering with nature, how often does greed or ignorance come into play? How do you feel as you survey the mess?
This is where I take some comfort in my "Armageddon Solution" to such problems as we are forcing onto nature. Maybe if we keep goofing up, someone or -thing will wipe the slate clean and let nature start over. I am not an organized-religion person, but I found it interesting, doing a little research on the name for my solution, that the Bible says that Armageddon is a place, not a meltdown, end-of-the-world event.
"It is not a battlefield, but a gathering place." Maybe we can be wiser and more protective of our world and create an Armageddon Solution that brings us together for the common good of conservation, which, in the end, will benefit us all. What do you think?
1/7/2007: 2006 was a banner year for changes for us, our companies, even the whales we see on Monterey Bay. How will the year just past affect 2007? Stay tuned.
Gray whales are on their annual migration south and being seen in strong numbers along with dolphins. January is the top month for the southbound migration, so try to catch it!
You could join us for a visit to the Inn prior to the official spring opening if you don't mind a work in progress. It will never be cheaper and would give cool bragging rights: "I was there before they even opened..."
Looking Back
Last January, I reflected on the tumultuous year we'd had. 2005 included breast cancer, which overshadowed everything else. I mention it every now and then as a reminder: Get those mammograms; do those self exams! [The day this went out, I was contacted by a woman whose best friend had just been diagnosed with breast cancer; she encouraged her friend to look back in the Captain's Log to read about my experiences because she appreciated the very personal account, its humor and suggestions.] 2006 presented us with a mixed bag and more changes than we had experienced in our lives together, which is saying something.
Steph and I took stock and Princess of Whales was front and center in the crosshairs. We'd found our wonderful place on the Trinity River and were up there as much as we could be, but we wanted more. We have always been the captains of Princess because she is a big boat and requires big boat experience. If we were to keep her, we needed to be down there. If we sold her, our captain had the skill and talent--two very different qualities--to run our boat Sanctuary without us.
When fuel prices spiked, we took a beating. Then interest rates rose, adding to the assault, which was finished off by her insurance, which is astronomical. We put Princess up for sale and almost lucked out with an early sale, but it fell through at the 11th hour. Now, she is scheduled for a vessel auction in February. I have mixed feelings about this. It's as though I have two incredible horses. Each is strong, exciting and thrilling to ride. But they're going different directions and I can only ride one horse. While I agreed with Steph and chose the move to Trinity County, it doesn't mean I don't long for the other horse, too.
I guess as we age, we encounter more and more things we won't do in this lifetime, but it's a new revelation for me. I've caught myself thinking about tugs recently and feeling remorseful that they are only a part of my past, not future. This is lunacy, since the work is demanding and around-the-clock; most of my shipmates were boneheads. I think what I am really missing is the fact I can't go back.
The door isn't closed to running Sanctuary every now and then, however; I wouldn't give that up. Little compares with operating a boat on the ocean; checking out the changes, relishing the days when the whales and dolphins and birds all seem to live in harmony and abundance. Then there are the passengers who become friends. I carry on email conversations with many of you; several as recently as today or yesterday. But it's not the same and I mull this over as I type. The trips we shared and what we saw out there together are like pieces of beach glass; each one is a different color and has a unique shape. It can't surprise you to know that Steph and I have filled our pockets with beach glass every walk on the beach after a cruise; all were with our dog or dogs, who especially loved this chance to run and splash and rub in long-dead animals. There is a large scallop shell next to my desk that's filled with some of that beach glass. Fragments of what was.
Starting in June and mostly completed in November, we made the move north and discovered to our horror that we had a lot more stuff than we thought. It bulges out of the garages of both Laughing Salmon and Sow's Ear. We unpack a box, shuffle stuff in one of the places to make room for it, sigh, then wonder what to do with the next box, the box after that and the rest of them. In the 12 years since Steph and I got together, we have moved a lot. We had so much going on that there was no time to sort things out, or tidy them up. 2007 is our year to pare down, simplify and live well; how about you?
New Additions
The bright spots in 2006 included two new additions to our family. Scupper Pro arrived in the fall when he had to find a new home due to downsizing. I have introduced him once, but here's a great picture from last month.
Scupper has had several kayak excursions on the lake but so far, no river runs. We have miraculously not taken a cold swim thanks to his exuberance and want to keep it that way on our winter trips down the Trinity. Scupper has a fabulous life jacket that Bisco must be envious of: red and black with reflective stripes and a cool pocket for Mom's lip balm. I think Bisco will get one soon.
Our other addition is a cat that is the same color as Squid: cream with apricot points and a ring tail. He was at a party at a log home up a remote canyon. We arrived to see him limping along on the deck, feasting on turkey and visiting with everyone. Our other cats are all rescued animals and comparatively spooky with most people. I picked this little guy up and he draped himself around my neck like a boa and stayed there. Who could leave him after  hearing he'd been seen up there for 2 days, a kitten outside, on his own, in freezing tempseratures, surrounded by hungry, wild animals?
We called him Tiny Tim due to the limp, knowing his real name would reveal itself, as all of our animals have proven. When antibiotics cured what may have been an infection from a bite, the limp went away and he became more rambunctious.
Remember The Three Chipmunks? Alvin was always being called by their human, Dave, who would call, "Alvin? Alvin?! AAALLLVIIIN!!!" This can be heard several times a day around here as he climbs the drapes, jumps on Bisco's head or scratches on the couch. He's so cross-eyed, we aren't sure how he functions, but he does very well. We had a little soirree at our place before Christmas. Alvin was the official greeter; he has completely taken over. Our animals are such powerful, positive influences in our lives and we never take them for granted; they are as important as friends and family.
Gray Whales Truckin' South
Back on the Monterey Bay: Gray whales are coming through in good numbers now. There is a question mark on where the grays fed last summer. Some researchers up north reported grays were scarce where they are usually seen feeding, but they're heading south right on time. Where were they? What did they feed on? What you learn from nature is that everything is always changing, either in small amounts or huge ones. Figuring out whether it's good or bad is tricky, but in this case, we should know a lot more when the whales head north. If they didn't feed well enough to withstand the winter's fast, we'll lose some on the trip back up.
The peak of the southbound gray whale migration is somewhere between now and the end of the month, so don't miss it. Yesterday, Noel had a big pod of Risso's dolphins as well as the grays, making for a very happy load of passengers.  Risso's are seen frequently on the bay and they are astounding: unique, second only to Orcas in size in the dolphin kingdom and easy to photograph! Katie Freeman got this shot of adults and a baby Risso's last year.
To make reservations, click on RESERVATIONS or you can call us at 530.778.3444.
Trinity River Adventure Inn Update
Progress on Sow's Ear's rustification slowed around the holidays but has sped up since then. Steelhead fishers are going crazy up here, although they may be crazy anyway. Weather has no impact on them and they are floating by in driftboats all day long. We're also seeing them in waders along the shore when we run the river. They think we're nuts to be on the river without a fishing pole.
 We can accommodate guests for fishing, kayaking or low-key lounging now. It ain't fancy, but you'll get a warm cabin, full kitchen with much of what you'd need already there and we will provide excellent meals if you don't feel like cooking. This time of year, we paddle the lakes and river, take long hikes on the mountain behind our place (often with a camera), sit by the fire and read and watch movies. The birds we see include mergansers, bald eagles, golden eagles, kingfishers, herons, egrets and many more. Just before Christmas, we saw several If that sounds good to you, drop us a line. The Inn is located in Lewiston, 45 minutes west of Redding in Northern California. You'll love it. See you out there or up here.
10/12/2006: Picture This:
Our whale watching cruises comprise the majority of our business. It's easy to know why, since there are very few places in the entire world where whales and dolphins are found year-round. Jim and Angela Boyd were lucky enough to get this shot of three humpbacks on a recent cruise, reminding me of how I'd have sold my soul for a shot of ONE whale back when I was working on tugs crossing the Gulf of Alaska.
Number Two is our Burial at Sea or ash scattering service. We've developed a good relationship with several funeral homes and their recommendations have helped us grow in this area. That means a lot to us because if someone has a lousy day whale watching due to bad weather or sketchy whales, they can go again. But there are no dress rehearsals in burials at sea and we consistently receive wonderful compliments on the cleanliness of our boat, how helpful our crew is and how we made a difficult time as good as it could be for the friends and family.
Catered Charters have the third spot in our business. We handle everything from hot drinks and pastries for small parties to full meals for an entire boatload. Our food is creative, flavorful and very reasonable. You can drop me an email for a quote for a company cruise, birthday celebration, anniversary, or whatever event you'd like to celebrate on the big blue. Our email address is at the bottom of this page, or just hit reply to this email!
Fourth would be our Special Charters other than burials at sea and catered cruises. We often have unique requests and we have a great time fulfilling them. When a young man wanted to propose to his girlfriend, we purchased flowers and champagne for him, hid them on our boat, took them out onto the ocean with whales. That's where he popped the question, then the cork.
We're doing another surprise charter like that soon and I can't wait. It's really fun being part of the planning committee and pulling everything off flawlessly.
9/28/2006: Humpbacks, the Dolphin Big 3 & Our Geo Documentary
The Fall Extravaganza
A thousand dolphins and several humpback whales were the stars of yesterd ay's cruise, confirming what we've said for years about fall on the Monterey Bay: It rocks! That must explain the "High One" being flipped at us recently by a rambunctious humpback in this photo by Jeff Matlock.
Our documentary is in editing for National Geographic and we're as excited as expectant parents. You know what you put into the creation, but it has a life of its own. Soon, we'll see the fruit of our pairing with Tigress Productions!
Humpbacks have remained strong, with more friendly experiences. Yesterday, five humpbacks obliged us with lunges, a breach and some great photo ops of flukes time and again. We saw the Dolphin Big 3: Pacific white-sided dolphins, Risso's dolphins and northern right whale dolphins. They were everywhere and passengers went totally crazy over them. We had a small school group from Hawaii on board and they got to see that the Monterey Bay has every bit as much to offer as Hawaii does, even if the water is a little different temperature; okay, a lot different! I have just updated the Dolphin Gallery on our web site and there is a quick link here in case you'd like to see them. This shot is of a Risso's flukes. It's the only one we have of Risso's flukes and Alice Steele was lucky enough to get it.
In the fall, trips are smaller, action is great and the conditions are often superb, so come on out with us.
Documenting a Real Life or Death Drama
I just got an email from Tigress Productions. That's the London-based production company that was here to film with us in early September. They say the program is now being edited and is looking great. Several of our passengers joined me for studio interviews after the cruise and the director reports, "The interviews carry real gravitas and emotion." Gravitas is not what you put on bagels; nor is it a Greek movie maker. If you look it up, please let us know what it means. I'm so pleased that we were able to share our feelings on the hunts. I've always encouraged passengers to give the whales a voice. This documentary will explore the connections between humans and cetaceans in a deeper way and I can't wait to see it.
During the shoot, Tig ress had a camera boat taking outboard shots of us, as well as a shooter in the water. This was great; it makes for a much more interesting piece (ever notice how low budget documentaries go back and forth between still photos and a single person until you're bored to tears?). In this photo, you see the in-the-water camera. The housing alone for this camera runs $6,000.00.
Another thing I love is the fact that several of our favorite cohorts in adventure, our passengers, will be in this documentary. That is such a cool division of the Right Place/Right Time Department. The director says they are on a tight timeline for delivery to National Geographic, but we don't have an air date yet. I will annouce it as soon as I know. See you out there.
Think you've seen it all? These pictures might suggest otherwise. [As always, when whales are at the boat, our engines are in neutral; they decided to come this close.] Check out my description of Saturday's cruise and what long-time passenger and marine biology teacher Vicky Martinez had to say about her cruise on Sunday. Both were magnificent.
9/19/2006: What Didn't These Whales Do?
With perfect weather last Saturday, we set out onto the bay with both Princess of Whales (she is still for sale, but she hasn't sold yet) and Sanctuary. Aboard Princess, we had Pinewood School for what I believe was their fifth annual whale watching cruise. As always, they were delightful. We also had a great group of PG&E employees, because one of them had been out with us last fall with her daughter's Girl Scout troop and she suggested our cruise as a company adventure.
Sanctuary had the open boat folks; a nice mix of serious photographers, friends who hooked up for the day and one fellow with his 4 year old daughter. He had made reservations that morning, then called to cancel because he didn't want to drive 20 minutes to Moss Landing. We held him to his reservation and insisted he would be glad he came. Wait until you see his picture coming up!
A Little Girl's Memories
The father and the little girl in the lime green T-shirt stayed at the back of Sanctuary, but it hardly mattered; there wasn't a bad seat in the house as two different humpbacks zeroed in on her and gave all of us a breath-taking show. They rolled, spyhopped, threw High Ones with their pectoral flippers and when they were farther from the boat, they breached and slapped their tails!
At times, the little girl stood at the rail with her dad and sometimes they sat, her on his lap. She got to see the whale's head just 20 feet away; she saw two whales swim by so close, she could have hopped on for a ride. I didn't get a chance to talk to her after we all got in, but I'd love to hear her description of the day. And her dad? What did he think of the 20 minute drive for a trip to the moon and back?
Then there was Sunday...
Vicky Martinez has been whale watching so many times, you'd think she had seen everything. But she was on the trip with Noel Sunday, when they had yet ANOTHER friendly humpback that took a particular shine to Sanctuary. There is a chance it was Mon Ami from last year, but we're waiting to compare photos. PBS was filming from another boat and Noel thinks they got incredible footage of the whale and Sanctuary, since she was the one getting all the whale's attention.
I'll let Vicky describe the experience: "Really! After 29 years of incredible whale watching around the planet, we got mugged by such a barnacled humpback today! I never imagined I would turn and hide my head from the obviously intentional blasts coming from this guy's blowholes! [Whales have to breathe, Vick] It was like being the doctor for a cetacean examination. The whale turned and rolled and twisted so that we got to examine every inch of his body, over and over again. He even had a little extra sound occasionally emitting from his exhalations. Many of the barnacles covering his body were extended and feeding while the humpback caressed your wonderful boat! He (yes, this is a guess) delighted at least three boatloads of people today and I hope he is enjoying the evening under the stars and waves of Monterey Bay. Thanks! Vicky M."
Vicky missed the melon-sized bump on the whale's abdomen, which means he was a she, as is Mon Ami. We have wondered if she'd come back this year and maybe she has. All we know for sure is that there has been a lot of friendly activity recently and it may very well continue throughout fall, as it did last year.
For those of you who have never seen friendly whales, this is your best chance of the year to revel in the glory. For those of you who have, you already know what it's like and should be making plans. After Labor Day, most trips are fairly small and yet the humpbacks just keep getting better.
Despite being clobbered by high fuel prices, we have held our ticket prices. For $42, adults can ship out on a voyage of enchantment. Kids 3-12 are $32 and under 3 is $6 You can make easy reservations by clicking the Reservations link above on the left. Or call us at 831.643.0128. See you out there.
8/16/2006: Whales, Wheels, Wheeee!
Whales and dolphins have been great on the Monterey Bay while Steph and I have been working on Sow's Ear for our Trinity River Adventure Inn. That's not all we've been up to, either; we took off on 5 wheels for our own adventure!
For years, Steph and I wondered how much of tracking whales we teach and how much is absorbed by the person who pays attention. There comes a time when we almost live inside the whale’s head, feeling where it’s going underwater and sensing where it will surface. This is what allows us to position the boat so that we get great sightings without threatening the animals. Noel’s tracking skills have blended from observation and experience into an intuitive art, prompting numerous compliments from seasoned Sanctuary Cruisers.
He's been busy utilizing his skills, since the bay has been filled with humpbacks, dolphins, minke whales and killer whales. We've even been able to get in some afternoon cruises, both open boat and charters, thanks to cooperative weather and close-in whales. Talk about close; we had orcas between the jetties and the MLA buoy this past week and a bunch of humpbacks just outside of them!
What can be more rewarding than opening email that raves about the great time people had on our cruises while we're working on Sow's Ear up on the Trinity River? Some might say not working at Sow’s Ear, but it is a very rewarding experience. We don’t make nearly as much progress as we should, because there is so much to do (such as these emails, accounting, paying bills... the glory work), but the new paint is going on and that’s a giant step forward.
That's not all we have been up to. Tuesday night, Steph, Bisco and I got home from a 3 state motorcycle odyssey to attend Steph's son's wedding. It has been years and years since we took a trip unrelated to business, so we didn’t view it as a vacation at first; but once we were on the road and stopping to visit old friends and family along the way, we realized it was just that. Bisco rode in her sidecar and had her photograph taken, conservatively speaking, maybe 500 times. She was mobbed at rest stops and even three black leather-clad Harley riders couldn't help ogling her 'car in a parking lot and started a conversation when we joined them. We stayed at Super 8 motels because they’re dog- friendly, and I mean friendly! The staff welcomed her, petted her and treated her like family at each one and Bisco accepted the motels as home.
It was work for Bisco sitting up and leaning into the wind for several hours each day. She could lie down, but didn’t; too curious. Steph will put a windshield on the ‘car, but until then, she’s building up her neck muscles. Upon arrival at each motel, Bisco hopped on the bed, splayed herself across it and gave us a look that said, “You must be joking!” when we asked if she wanted to go out for dinner. By the way, if you’re near Ashland, Oregon on your travels, eat at The Wild Goose Café across from the Super 8 on the south end of town and just off I-5. We had the best oyster cocktail there, an excellent Manhattan clam chowder, house wine is $1.75 and in the morning, I ordered an astounding fresh marionberry pancake breakfast with eggs and bacon for something like $7.
Our trip explains why I didn't get to the Trinity River Adventure Inn update yet, but it is also going out today. If you haven’t signed up to receive it, you can catch the stories by going to Trinity River Adventure Inn. Better yet, go to our home page and click on the sign-up box at the bottom on the left menu bar, then sign up for them, too. As you know, nobody uses our mailing list but us and not nearly as often as I wish we did! This update certainly has a Monterey angle to it,  since we recently hosted Monterey Fire Captain Barry Perkins and his family for a work and play vacation. We already love Barry, so it was no surprise that his wife and kids are also bright, fun to be around and fantastic guests. Wait until you hear what they did upon their arrival; it will surprise me if we EVER see such behavior again by an entire family!
Every company has fans and for us, a pair of real winners is Scott and Mila Hassel. They don't get out with us often, but they really enjoy their cruises and keep up on the whales and dolphins through our updates. When I wrote about the stingy photographer, Scott was one of the first to voice his displeasure, citing the overall quality of our trips and friendliness of our passengers as what sets us apart. He, like most of our passengers and readers, appreciates the photos so generously shared for the web site and updates.
Last week, Scott and Mila took their 15 year old godson David Busco whale watching with us. He was in awe from the very start, according to Scott, who said Captain Noel "did an awesome job of putting us in the right places at the right times!" They were surrounded by perhaps 100 Risso's dolphins not long after the trip began. Then they saw many humpbacks, including one with all white flukes on the underside. Could this be Bright White, a whale we have seen for years? I’d have to dig through boxes of slides to know for sure, but a pure white tail is very rare indeed.
David caught a photograph for us and here it is. Pretty good for a young man from Hermitage, Pennsylvania, where I'd imagine the opportunity of honing one's whale photography is pretty limited. This was David's first visit to California; rounding out the trip, they even saw a minke whale, which added to the magical adventure courtesy of David's godparents. They are doing exactly what godparents should do, aren't they?
 Andy Goff also took home some great photos to go with his memories of a recent cruise, including this one of a humpback's tail. Our crew found a large pod, resulting in what Andy called "a delightful experience." Mark Levine scored big with numerous great shots of humpbacks and orcas from his cruise; it was one of our afternoon cruises, which we add when morning cruises get close to filling. I will post some of his shots on our web site soon, along with Christopher Van Horn's, who also captured great pictures of the white fluked whale.
While we were heading north on the motorcycles, our crew was preparing for a catered cruise on Monterey Bay. Brian Colona had tried for years to get his 80 year old dad together with his young son so all three could play a round of golf. It finally happened when the entire family was in Monterey for the Concours de Elegance. Sanctuary was outfitted with a fabulous BBQ'd tri tip cooked by Kim at The Haute Enchilada. They had my pasta salad, made by our buddy Ardie, who used her own home grown basil in it and even added a jar of her spicy dilly beans to the appetizers. What does one drink on such a cruise? Brian requested we have a case of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and one six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer on the boat, because it’s an old favorite of his dad's.
They hoped to see whales during their two hour cruise and since they were a salty group with a lot of boating experience, Noel pressed out against a late afternoon sea breeze and swell to deliver the goods. Excellent food, company and whales have to top anything on land, even at Pebble Beach. Brian was elated.
More Wheeee!
Here are Barry and Eliza Perkins on their river run. I waded out into the river with our new Nikon to get shots like this and think it was well worth the risk!
Sarah the Monkeyman
In motorcycle racing with sidecars, the rider in the 'car is called the monkey man and has to do a lot of leaning. Picture going around a left turn; the 'car would take the momentum. But on a right turn, the momentum could, if one were driving fast enough and/or had a lighter load in the 'car, go completely over.
 Here you see Sarah Perkins riding with Steph and being a good monkey man. She enjoyed it as much as the kids did. Bisco is also a good monkey man, leaning heavily for turns as we approach them, even in the truck! The things we learn on our adventures... That's the news from our end. Y'all take care and we'll see you out there!
7/23/2006: Frisky Whales & Beautiful Seas
There aren't many firsts after a lot of years running whale watching cruises on Monterey Bay, but our crew had one a few days ago. The pinnacle of whale watching has to be a friendly whale that hangs around the boat for several minutes and sometimes much longer. If that's as good as it gets, what would you call three friendlies (all humpbacks, as is usually the case) on one trip, with two of them being our first ever mother and calf friendlies? I'd call it a darn shame I wasn't on the boat.
We have had a friendly calf that popped up around the boat while its mother held off a short distance away. We have had a mother whale visit us while her calf wandered around a bit of a distance from us. But to have both at the boat, exploring our world as enchanted passengers experienced them, was a first. Why do humpbacks show this behavior and why does it seem to be growing? We don’t know, but we love it. We sit with the boat in neutral and leave it to them to decide how and where to approach and the effect is mesmerizing.
On another cruise recently, with sunny conditions and a bunch of happy people aboard, a humpback showed off big time. There were numerous breaches and tail slaps. Skies were clear and blue; there was a gentle breeze and a wind riffle on the bay. Christy, Elk and Zachary Latham were there to take it all in and then some. They sent this shot and the one at the top of this page. Ironically, they got what could have been the picture from the day of the close breach that I wrote about below, the one where the guy who got a similar shot refused to share it for updates. But in this case, the Lathams did share, emailing the photos soon after their cruise along with a heartfelt note: "Thank you for the fantastic day. We were really lucky to see this whale show off for us again and again." Precisely.
Running on Trinity Time
My shots up north in Trinity have centered more on smaller wildlife. Yesterday, I patiently waited for a mama Merganser and her half-grown babies to continue down the river past our place, but she was spooked by my ever-so-slow move to the patio. She sternly called to her brood and they zipped across the river and held in the shade. Then Sandy, who owns Old Bridge Rafting along with her husband Scott, arrived upstream across the river to pick up rafters. More intruders! The mama didn't like this at all. She worked over to our side and I did get pictures, but not of their casual, meandering pace before I went outside. This behavior was more like circling the wagons. The youngsters followed in tight formation behind her and decided to ask questions later, if at all.
Last week, we took a run up to Alpen Cellars Winery, which is above Trinity Lake and a very nice motorcycle ride. We were joined by friends who wanted to help us figure out the timing for a trip with guests, since we plan to offer this excursion both by car and motorcycle. It will be for guests who bring their own bikes, those who would like to do part of the trip by sidecar and people who just want to go in a regular car.
Father and son team Mark and Keith run Alpen Cellars. We like their wines so much that we carry them on our boats. This gives their tiny winery the ability to claim, “Alpen Cellars Wine~Served on Cruise Ships.” Mark  is the dad and a droll sort. When he heard about Sanctuary Cruises, he asked caustically, "Who would pay money to see whales?" I might have replied, "Who would pay money to drink wine?" but there is a very long list of those people, far longer than those who would pay money to see whales, I suspect. Note Bisco's hot pink "Doggles." Yeah, they look cool, but they are real UVA and UVB screening glasses and they protect her from road debris. You can imagine the looks she gets!
Steph and I are working hard on Sow's Ear until it gets hot and we're pooped. Then we take a little nap before heading out on the river. The other night, we launched upstream at 6. On the trip to our place, we saw a brand new baby fawn at the river's edge. Mom was behind some bushes and watched us pass warily, but the fawn took us in as though it was thinking, "Okay, two kayaks, two people and a black dog. Cool!" Oh, to be so young and naive that danger doesn't exist in one's thoughts.
The green herons are back, although we aren't sure where they went the past several months; we saw 6 or 7 last night. We also came across two female Mergansers with almost twenty small chicks. We see them a lot and they always move away, confident we are not to be trusted.
Our next Work & Play Session is coming up in early August and it's booked. The next open dates start in mid-August; if you're interested in participating, drop us an email (mail@sanctuarycruises.com). Watering, gardening, priming and general clean-up are some of the Work and learning to kayak on the lakes, running the river (if you're up for it), sidecar trips, hiking and photography are some of the Play.
If you'd like to read more about the people, animals and adventures in Trinity, including fly fishers that will take your breath away, sign up for The Trinity River Adventure Inn updates on our mailing list; I will put out the long version of this update soon. Stay cool.
6/28/2006: The Picture You Won't See
On a recent cruise, Kathi and Marty Mogalian were onboard. It had been several years since their last cruise because they live in Arizona, but whale watching is one of Kathi's favorite adventures and she was jazzed.
Our crew saw Big Fin, the large female with the super- sized dorsal fin, then they moved out to watch a smaller humpback. It cruised around for a while, then dove. When it came up in a jaw-dropping breach, it was so close to Sanctuary that a frequent passenger captured a photograph with the rail of the boat in the foreground and the whale not far beyond that. WOW.
Kathi wrote today, raving about the experience: Marty and I had an AWESOME time Sunday morning. It was very accommodating of Big Fin to keep us entertained. But the second humpback we saw that breached right in front of us was truly AMAZING.
She went on to say she had seen the digital photograph captured by the frequent passenger of ours and couldn't wait "until he posts it for all to see." And therein lies the rub. While a good number of our passengers gladly share their photos and understand that seeing something so astounding is a gift, others don't view it that way. In fact, when asked to email it to me, the guy turned to smirk as though saying, "Fat chance."
I've mulled this over for days and here is what I've come up with. First, I don't like stingy people. Second, we so often go beyond expectations on our cruises and it frequently costs us in fuel and crew pay. We do this so we can deliver the best adventure for our passengers because it really matters to us whether they have as great a time as possible, or not.
We don't charge extra for detours miles out of our way because even though our passengers have seen humpbacks and had a good time, we might be able to catch up to a pod of orcas or a thousand Pacific white-sided dolphins. The person who got that breach shot has been the recipient of many such detours. He also has demanded much of our time on each cruise, asking question after question, and has always been accommodated, even though he made it difficult for others to visit with the crew.
So in the end, it's his right not to share his shot, even in low res for the web site, but it's our right to tell him he's not our type and suggest he take his camera elsewhere. Life is a give and take and who needs someone who misses the first part of that equation?
We'd rather cater to joyous people like Kathi who ended her email by saying, "All in all, a wonderful day. Thank you for entrusting us to a wonderful crew. Hopefully we'll see you again, sooner than 6 years this time." Indeed. See you out there.
[I had no idea the firestorm of support the update above would result in. We heard from almost every semi-pro photographer that joins us several times each year. We heard from people who live vicariously through the pictures so generously shared. We heard from people who live nearby and from those who live far away. All but one email said, "Right on, Heidi!" or something similar. One person advised letting it go, which was easier once I'd spoken my mind. ]
7/23/2006: Frisky Whales & Beautiful Seas
There aren't many firsts after a lot of years running whale watching cruises on Monterey Bay, but Captain Noel and Lauren, his deckhand, had one a few days ago. The pinnacle of whale watching has to be a friendly whale that hangs around the boat for several minutes and sometimes much longer. If that's as good as it gets, what would you call three friendlies (all humpbacks, as is usually the case) on one trip, with two of them being our first ever mother and calf friendlies? I'd call it a darn shame I wasn't on the boat.
We have had a friendly calf that popped up around the boat while its mother held off a short distance away. We have had a mother whale visit us while her calf wandered around a bit of a distance from us. But to have both at the boat, exploring our world as enchanted passengers experienced them, was a first. Why do humpbacks show this behavior and why does it seem to be growing? We don’t know, but we love it. We sit with the boat in neutral and leave it to them to decide how and where to approach and the effect is mesmerizing.
On another cruise recently, with sunny conditions and a bunch of happy people aboard, a humpback showed off big time. There were numerous breaches and tail slaps. Skies were clear and blue; there was a gentle breeze and a wind riffle on the bay. Christy, Elk and Zachary Latham were there to take it all in and then some. They sent this shot and ironically, they got what could have been the picture from the day of the close breach that I wrote about below, the one where the guy who got a similar shot refused to share it for updates. But in this case, the Lathams did share, emailing the photos soon after their cruise along with a heartfelt note: "Thank you for the fantastic day. We were really lucky to see this whale show off for us again and again." Precisely.
10/19/2005: The Definition of Magic
[This is out of sequence because it's so good, you shouldn't miss it.]
Jon Cronk was out with us a few weeks ago. It was his first time with Sanctuary Cruises and he was treated to three friendly humpback whales. He got so many great photos, he brought us a CD of them when he joined us last Sunday.
On that day, we had MORE friendly experiences! Jon was busy taking pictures while another passenger, Bobbi Dunham, absorbed the experience. Here is her letter:
If I could have handed someone a wish list of special things to include on a special day, the list would not have included all the wonderful things that happened on our Sanctuary Cruise. I wouldn’t have dared ask for the things that actually occurred. But sometimes, magic happens.
Magic happened on Sunday, October 16, 2005.
We have a young friend from Switzerland who is in the United States in an English language immersion program. She has always loved whales, largely because of the “Free Willy” films, but has never had the opportunity to see them. So, we planned a whale watching outing, largely for her, but also for ourselves. We’d gone on two other occasions and always had a wonderful time.
I did some research online because I wanted to make certain we chose the tour that would give her the best experience possible. Sanctuary Cruises appealed to me for several reasons. The welfare of the animals themselves figured prominently in the content of their website. And I loved the idea of one tour per day, so the maximum attention could be given to that tour.
The night before our cruise, I lay listening to the pounding of the surf, and was a little anxious about the weather and ocean conditions, but the day dawned sunny, clear, and calm. We arrived at Moss Landing early, had a look at our boat, and said a brief hello to an extremely capable looking man we later learned to be Captain Steph. We returned to the dockside and waited in the warm sunshine, soaking in the atmosphere of the picturesque dock, while the cranky sea lions barked about whatever cranky sea lions bark about.
Right on time, Captain Steph walked toward those of us who had gathered at the dock, and we made our way to the Sanctuary, a solid-looking, immaculately clean vessel with a four-footed first mate. I remember now that Captain Steph told me right before departure that he loved this boat, that the best things always happened on this boat.
Steph told us the swell was high that day, despite the idyllic appearance of the sky and lack of wind, but that if we liked E ticket rides at Disneyland, we would love the trip out to open water. We did. We sat on the seats in front of the wheel, spotting jellies, scanning the horizon, and hanging on tight till our bodies found their natural rhythm to ride the rise and fall of our sturdy little boat’s progress through the swell. That alone was worth the price of admission. We left all the extra hats and coats we had lugged along inside the cabin, never needing them.
Along the way, we saw otters feeding in waters conventional wisdom had told us was too deep for otters to feed in. Captain Steph told us about seeing an otter floating in water of that depth with a crab on it’s chest/menu. I guess Sanctuary isn’t the only object on the sea whose size belies its capabilities.
We were also delighted to see small groups of sea lions, arcing in and out of the water in an impossibly lyrical dance, then stopping as a body and looking back at us, as if to ask if we had gotten their picture, and did we perhaps agree with Captain Steph’s quip that they thought the whales were over-rated.
A very short time into our trip, Steph told us that he had spoken to a ship we could see a couple of miles ahead of us, and that we might be seeing something pretty wonderful fairly soon. Steph slowed the boat’s engine and you could nearly taste the anticipation. I can’t remember which happened first, the sound, the smell, or the sight of our first whales of the day. It was Big Fin and her calf. We spotted their blow and heard that mighty blast as their breath plumed into the sky. Two incredibly graceful forms arched into view, the familial rise and fall of cow and calf, a lifelong rhythm we were fortunate to see at it’s beginning. Steph told us to wait, wait, wait, NOW, take your pictures, and we all got our first shot of those fabulous flukes.
The whales were just being whales and we were completely thrilled. Steph, with uncanny accuracy, born of experience, instinct, and maybe a little assistance from a depth sounder, kept us right in position to get another good look when they broke surface again. More blow! And this time we were close enough for our first whiff of whale breath - once smelled, never forgotten. Another great photo op, and they disappeared again with a graceful flash. Steph pointed out their footprints, the slick left behind by the water being displaced by their mighty flukes. We watched, trying to comprehend the power of a creature which could do that - and be no threat to us.
And this was just the beginning. As Steph said a little later, trying to decide which whale to watch was not the worst problem to have. We saw so many. It seemed everywhere we looked, there was blow and those graceful forms breaking the surface. It was too good to be true, too many whales to see all at once.
We slowly moved away from the whales we had been watching, because as Steph said, the primary concern was not to change the behavior of the animals by our actions.
I wish I could remember the exact sequence of events. Steph said he had spotted another cow and calf, which was so unusual for the time of year. She had been seen before, but didn’t have a name as yet. He again slowed the engine, and waited to see the animal’s response to us. Nothing could have prepared us for what then happened. Nothing. She came to us. In friendship? In curiosity? She came to us and showed us the wonder that is a whale in a whale’s world. Without fear, without aggression, she came to us.
The sea was a little rough, and we made our unsteady way from one end of the boat to the other as she dove and rose again and again. She blew her plume right into the boat with us, and we didn’t even mind her breath. She showed us her belly, she raised her flippers out of the water, she displayed her majestic flukes. We were all in awe, and I remember someone asking if this happened all the time, and Steph saying, no, no, that something truly special was going on.
I don’t know how long this lasted. She never seemed to tire of us or of showing us her beauty, and we would never have tired of her. But Steph, mindful of her calf skirting us a short distance away, said we should no longer engage her, and we prepared to end the most magical moment of our lives.
But it didn’t end. We moved off and she followed us. I watched in fascination as she dove under the boat, moving from side to side, fore and aft, looking at us all, raising her massively elegant head out of the water, diving right beneath us, never touching the boat, though only missing it by mere inches. We reached our hands toward her as she would lift her flipper, then she would roll, and slip beneath the boat, leaving us to watch that gentle thrust of her flukes, using just enough of that amazing power to propel herself, never enough to harm us in any way. I thought my heart would burst from the joy of this once-in-a-lifetime chance to interact with one of the most magnificent creatures of this magnificent ocean. She was so incredibly beautiful, and graceful. Gentle. Then, regretfully, but respectfully, we moved off.
We were busy scanning for the by now familiar puff and blow of a rising whale, when, the unimaginable happened. She surfaced next to us again. It was magic. Pure magic. She showed us every square inch of herself, her beautiful, generous self. “She likes us,” someone cried out. She must have. We saturated our senses with her, and while others may someday discern the reasons for her amazing actions that day, I am content to simply be amazed by them, connected to her by them, changed by them. She awoke something innate deep in my heart, and it clamors to be heard today, and hopefully tomorrow, and everyday for the rest of my life. It was suggested our beautiful friend should be named. I suggested ‘Mon Ami’. Whether that name sticks or not, it is how I will always remember her. My friend. May God grant her, and all her kind, a long, healthy, contented life.
And thank you, Captain Steph and Sanctuary Cruises for giving us one of the best, the most magical days we will ever know.
3/31/06: Gray whales are headed north in great numbers now. Anyone who has been out with us and witnessed an orcas attack on gray whales remembers the vivid life and death battle that takes place. Will we see as many hunts this spring as we did in 2004 and 2005? Hard to say, but that time in drawing near. I'm looking for some of our passengers from the 2004 Mother's Day hunt.
Humpbacks have remained in the area and since there is plenty of food out there, the ones already here will most likely stay. Soon, they be joined by the humpbacks that went south for the winter.
Dolphins have been really good as well. We've seen a lot of our "summer" dolphins, such as Pacific white- sided dolphins and northern right whale dolphins. We see Risso's all year and they've been around a good deal But only a few sightings of our usual winter dolphins, the commons. Frequently seen all winter in the thousands, the limited sightings have been of tiny groups. Where are they?
Whales of Spring
Spring gives us a lot of everything. It's an overload for the senses as so much life explodes in the bay. We've already been watching lunge-feeding humpbacks in the midst of hundreds of sea lions. We've also seen the humpbacks breaching and cavorting, with numbers up to perhaps 8 in one place. It won't be long before that becomes 20, 30 or even more.
Gray whales that have wintered in Baja are trucking north to their feeding grounds. They've lost a lot of weight by this time, so they don't tend to dawdle unless they stop to mate. That can be quite a spectacle! The lose track of everything but sex, sort of like humans. Noel ran a recent trip that had some pretty cool activity in that direction.
When making tracks, though, they seem to cross the bay farther out and can be spotted in pods of 5 or more. It's thought they draft off each other as birds and bicyclists do, which would explain how close they swim to each other.
A Look Back at Mother's Day 2004
The gray whale attack by orcas on Mother's Day, 2004, stands out for several reasons, including the fact we had many women celebrating the day with their mothers. They weren't happy seeing that baby gray whale being battered by the killer whales and they let them know it. If you were on THAT cruise, drop me an email. A British film crew might want to interview you.
BBC has produced programs on the hunts and kills of baby grays, but this team wants to look at the human side and hear how you felt about it. They read Eye of the Whale to get some background and called us after reading our Captain's Logs and the story from 2004 on our web site.
It will be refreshing to see the hunt portrayed from both sides, not just the side that says, "Everything has to eat and wow, is this exciting!"
3/20/2006: How do you choose a company that does business in a conservation-minded way? I was recently part of a Monterey Institute of International Studies forum that examined green tourism and some interesting insights were shared. Also, Steph was reunited with a guy who played a huge part in his sea kayak expedition!
Spring Break is an opportunity to do something that will reward you with lasting memories. We often hear from parents who say all their kids talked about after their California vacation was cruising with us. If you haven't done it yet, make this your year to be a hero.
We've extended our Photo Contest through April. Entries so far include whales, dolphins (such as the Pacific white-sided dolphin above by Rob Spain) and some intriguing new looks at familiar sights. See the details below.
Sustainabilty & a Surprise
This is the time of year when parents look for something really different to do while their kids are out of school on spring break. Not surprisingly, it's also a busy time for us, because our whale watching cruises offer a combination of adventure, excitement, experiencing nature and a strong example in how to operate responsibly around whales, dolphins and other sealife. For instance, the otter in this shot by Tammy Mallett is paying attention to us, which isn't a goal of a nature cruise company, unless the animal is in the channel and the boat must go by. We tip- toe past and always watch for otters popping up in front of us.
In order to feel good about ourselves and our company, we need to keep the impact on the creatures we see as low as possible; it is always our first priority. This makes our cruises a sustainable activity, one that doesn't have an adverse impact on wildlife. The Monterey Institute of International Studies recently sponsored their third annual Net Impact Forum, which examined several aspects of responsible stewardship being practiced by businesses on the Central Coast. I was honored to be part of the sustainable tourism panel, which included John Poimiroo (Poimiroo & Partners, a communications consultancy that specializes in travel and tourism marketing communications) and Chris Doyle (Adventure Travel Trade Association director and editor of Adventure Travel News).
In a conference call before the event, we agreed a lot of consumers care about their impact on nature; they want to make informed choices and look for green businesses, companies that operate in an earth and wildlife friendly manner. But how do they know? There are several organizations that are evaluating business practices and awarding a green rating if they meet the criteria. The problem is, criteria varies from one organization to the next and there is no definitive standard. Often, these ratings come at a price. Should a company that strives to do the right thing have to pay more to be recognized for its efforts?
In a conference call before the event, we agreed a lot of consumers care about their impact on nature; they want to make informed choices and look for green businesses, companies that operate in an earth and wildlife friendly manner. But how do they know? There are several organizations that are evaluating business practices and awarding a green rating if they meet the criteria. The problem is, criteria varies from one organization to the next and there is no definitive standard. Often, these ratings come at a price. Should a company that strives to do the right thing have to pay more to be recognized for its efforts?
Chris worked at R.E.I. back then and it was his job to decide whether to support Steph, who was an unknown at the time. Companies are constantly hounded for sponsorship, but Steph convinced Chris he was serious and he'd complete the grueling, 1600 nautical trip. R.E.I donated a very large amount of equipment to the expedition, but much more than that, this was the first success Steph had in attracting sponsorship. That was worth even more than the gear and soon, he had other companies sign on, including Kokatat Water Sportswear.
When R.E.I. built their stunning flagship store in downtown Seattle, complete with a fantastic waterfall and pools as well as a climbing wall, they hung the equipment of many legendary expeditioners on the walls of the entrance. Steph's BC to BC Eddyline kayak, Swift paddle and Kokatat Gore-Tex drysuit are all there. People involved in the outdoor industry and conservation might change directions, but all roads still lead home, don't they? See you out there.
The winter whales of 2006 still have us in awe. We have seen humpbacks just about every week for the past few months and often, several sightings each week. We're seeing strong numbers of gray whales migrating north now and dolphins from small pods to the thousands have added to the excitement. As we edge closer to spring, more orcas arrive.
Sandy Ahlgrim wrote the other day and said: "Wanted to send a note to tell you we had a great cruise. My daughter who is 5 loved the trip. She tells everyone who will listen that she drove the boat and all that she learned. It was more than I thought a five year old could remember."
Which reminds me, parents usually discover their kids know far more about whales and dolphins than they do. Part of this is due to nature programs they watch on TV, but big credit goes to teachers who work hard to open the kids' eyes to a world that is so different from theirs.
Rest assured you'll go home with great stories to tell and maybe even some cool photographs.
2/18/2006: As Alice said in Wonderland, "Things are getting curiouser and curiouser."
First we saw a humpback several weeks ago. Then we saw two. Then three were reported. And today, the bay hosted several different groups of them, all feeding and having a fine old time out there.
Didn't anyone tell them it's winter and they're supposed to be down south?
 Among our passengers was a woman from the UK who has planned this trip for quite some time. She was beside herself with anticipation at seeing gray whales and she did see them (northbounders!), along with the humpbacks and dolphins.
As the seasons pass, we get a feeling for what we might expect to see on the bay. For instance, in winter we see gray whales, orcas and Risso’s dolphins. The humpbacks are down south and we won’t see them until spring. And yet, for the past two weeks, not only have we seen a humpback, we’ve seen two of them! Although one was pretty reserved, the second one has proven to be a terrific show off.
On one of our cruises, this young female did something we’ve never seen before. Time and again, she would rise out of the water flukes first, as though someone was playing a video backwards. She must have been backstroking with her long pectoral flippers to pull this off.
Look at her in this picture on the right (by Tammy Mallet). This looks like the top of the whale's tail, but it isn't. The pronounced white you see tells you this is the underside (humpback fluke tops can have white edges, especially due to barnacles or scarring, but not the amount of white you see here). You can also tell it's a female from the melon-sized bump on the body right at the surface. This bump is on the underside.
As always on our trips, the experience was made even better because of the reaction of our passengers. We had quite a few of our regulars out with us, people who know the general rhythm of whale behavior and their surprise matched ours. This is one creative humpback. Tammy Mallet took this picture and it shows more of the whale’s antics. What you’re looking at is the underside of the body and flukes; the topside is very dark. In order to show herself at this angle, the humpback had to be swimming upside down.
Even when the whale did swim and dive in the regular way, she held her flukes and tail stock extra high out of the water, giving us a chance to glimpse the melon-sized bump on her lower belly; that’s how we knew she was a female.
With several passengers taking digital pictures, we heard an unusual complaint. “Can’t she give us a break, so we can download what we’ve already taken?” one fellow asked. Another said he couldn’t delete some of the bad shots to make room because he hadn’t taken any bad shots. “They’re all good!” he chuckled.
So when the University of the Pacific Marine Biology Classes joined us for their annual winter cruise, they had to make an adjustment in their expectations. Yes, they’d see gray whales, but the humpback sightings would be the highlight of the day. See you out there.
February 2, 2006: Two Kinds of Orcas!
We had several sightings of killer whales last week, including the Transients we usually see. But a pretty spectacular event occurred on Wednesday, 1/25, when we got to see the Offshore Pod. This is an elusive group that is believed to travel the farthest distance (individuals have been seen off L.A. and up in Alaska).
We had a bunch of kids from Ladd Lane School in Hollister with us and they went completely crazy, as did their parents. Unfortunately, Steph and I had our hands full and didn't get pictures, but we're hoping for some from the parents and kids.
They had ample opportunity, since large males swam close by both sides of the boat and there were 20 or more killer whales out there. Another turned on its back just off our starboard side and swam by upside down!
Transients also were seen on a couple of days last week, making it a big week for orcas. I thought my birthday surprise would be on the weekend, but I'd forgotten I'd be on the school cruise, which was only one day from my birthday. That experience, seeing the Offshores, certainly qualified as the special surprise we've come to expect.
Gray Whales Keep Coming, Too
The poor gray whales have probably been pretty nervous with all the killer whales in the area, but maybe they know the Offshore Pod eats fish, not whales. Their tastes run toward opah, tuna and sharks.
The Transients are the ones who do eat whales, especially baby grays, along with sea lions, seals and even birds. Birds can't be very satisfying, but maybe they treat birds as climbers treat mountains. They climb (or eat) them because they are there.
We're still seeing grays in good numbers, although they leaned toward the sketchy side with the killer whales in town. That should change if the tuxedos take off and if not, we may spot them again. See you out there.
January 20, 2006: More Whales & Better Weather This Weekend )
Every January around my birthday, we have extraordinary gray whale experiences. Since I usually work on the boats weekends, the one closest to my birthday is the one to watch and this is it coming up.
Many of our passengers and readers know this, such as Teri Garcia. You may remember a LOT of her photos, as well as her daughter's and their friend's, have appeared on these updates and in my Salinas Californian columns. Teri and her family are joining us tomorrow.
I'm expecting entries from them and Ed Hughes in our Winter Photo Contest. You have a chance to win a free whale watching cruise for everyone in your party, so check out details on our home page.
I told Ed he is sort of a ringer for the photo contest because he is so good and comes out with us so often. And yet, Nadya Ramsaroop won 2nd Prize last year with a photo from her first cruise ever with us.
Binki Thompson-Whale Warrior
Since its publication, Eye of the Whale by Dick Russell has been the definitive piece on the California gray whales and the effect they have on the people they pass on their migration. Eye tells the story of the whales and those whose lives have intertwined with theirs, including ours.
We first met Dick when we were camped outside Neah Bay in the fall and early winter of 1998, fighting the gray whale hunt. It was a rotten time, but no whales were killed on our watch and we met some extraordinary people. Topping the list would have to be Binki Thompson, the Makah elder who said killing whales is wrong.
Binki was ostracized for her deeply held beliefs. Her grandson was beaten up, her dog was killed by the tribal police chief and that same miserable man even threatened Binki herself.
That's when Steph and a weekend volunteer spirited Binki off the reservation and we put her in hiding with us. I would take her to Santa Cruz on a whirlwind 24 hour trip to tell what was really going on up north. We would cross paths with her old friend Jean- Michel Cousteau twice on our journey.
A few days before we were to leave, Dick Russell, a stranger to us then, came knocking at our door at the small campground we rented as a base of operations. He was looking for Binki and we thought he was a Fed.
Read the rest of this amazing story here. You can get the book, signed by Dick and us, by calling 530.778.3444. It's a 700 page adventure that will leave you dazzled over how the gray whale touches lives.
January 1, 2006: Through the Looking Glass
What a year this was for us. I guess the biggest event was my diagnosis with breast cancer in March. That set up the rest of the year as I had two operations, a break, then 7 weeks of radiation, a longer break and finally a hysterectomy in November.
Depending on whether you're a glass half full or half empty type, 2005 was either a lousy year or a great year. While some of the details sucked, I'm still here and I'm doing well.
Listening to an interview with a man from New Orleans, I was impressed with his determination. He lost his home to Hurricane Katrina and while living in temporary housing, his wife met another man. She chose the new guy. So this man returned to New Orleans alone and was attempting to start over because New Orleans is his home.
What he meant was New Orleans is so much a part of him that he feels incomplete elsewhere. It’s his center of the universe. He really stressed this fact, making me wonder if he was a little too rigid. There is a balance to strike. Then again, when asked why he wasn’t more upset over the dreadful events of 2005, he cited the bright spots: His kids were okay, he hadn’t lost friends to the disaster, he would figure out housing. He credited his father for this thankfulness. His dad always said forget about what you don’t have and be grateful for what you do have.
I can take a lesson from this man. I could whine about being that 1 in 8 statistic of who will get breast cancer, but here are the bright spots: I found it early; I have astounding doctors who have guided me with skill, humor and warmth. I can handle almost anything if I have people with those three traits to their credit. I have had Steph, my true north, by my side the whole time. He is fearless and unstoppable and this rubs off on me.
Somehow, I managed the operations and treatment without any disruption to our cruises. Steph and our crew had a lot to do with this, pitching in to cover for me and doing an admirable job of it. Never think you are indispensable.
Our year of whale watching also had its share of highs and lows. All the friendly humpback whale experiences were just amazing. Many people got to see this phenomenon more than once. The megapods of Risso's dolphins were also headliners for us. We easily had over 5,000 Risso's out there on several occasions and that can be every bit as magical as a friendly humpback.
On the down side, the spring winds that usually blow from the NW came in more from the W-SW and those angles don't cause the upwelling of nutrients that fuels the explosion in the web of life on the Central Coast. This had a direct correlation with blue whales, which come here to feed on krill. Blues' caloric needs are so huge, if they don't find the food they need, they move on. Because of this, the very common sightings of blues was cut substantially and we had a shorter blue season.
There was a later upwelling and it did help feed some creatures, but it came too late for many sea birds. We were sad to see how many juveniles died in the spring. When it comes to weapons of mass destruction, Nature sweeps the awards.
The January Parade of Barnacles
Superlatives fail me when I try to describe January on the Monterey Bay. Ken Weiss, environmental writer for the L.A. Times, was out with us in January a few years ago and he had the same trouble. He counted 40 gray whales on our cruise and there could even have been more than that.
We see them in groups of 3 or 4, some are solo and at times, there are so many whales that we're just blown away by their timing. Visibility isn't great in our waters, and yet 15 whales can surface almost as one. How do they know?
For that matter, how do they know when to leave the Bering Sea and head south? Why do some drop out of the migration and hang out along the way? The world of whales is filled with intrigue and mystery, which might help explain how they entrance us. January brings us the greatest opportunities to get our fill of sightings, if that were possible, but I don't think it is.
I have driven in from being with lots of whales and had what amounts to a whale hangover, but I always want to see more.
 Our Winter Photo Contest 2006
It takes skill, luck and a great camera to take a fantastic photograph, but often, just one or two of the three will result in a winner. The two ingredients to success might well be timing and a cooperative, if not great, camera.
If you are intrigued, consider entering our contest. It's free and the rules are pretty simple. You may enter as many photos as you like, but they have to be taken on a cruise with us between January 1st and March 31st, 2006. Entries should be emailed to us in as high a resolution as possible. Send them to: mail@sanctuarycruises.com.
If you don't have a digital camera, you can mail prints to us at this address: Sanctuary Cruises 25515 Hidden Mesa Rd. Monterey, CA 93940. Steph and I will pick the best, then I'll send them out in our newsletter so you can have the final say on the winners.
There will be an Adult Division and a Kids' Division for kids under 13. The three categories are Gray Whale (s), Dolphins (including Orcas) and Mystery, which can be anything, such as otters, sea lions, seals, birds or whatever else we see on the cruise.
By entering, you give us permission to use your photo on our web site and anywhere else, such as in my newspaper column. If your photo is used in print, we'll credit you as the photographer. Most often, I put credits on photos used on our web site, but as time goes by, I might pop some on for a while without credit.
Grand prize for the Adult Division is a free whale watching cruise for everyone in your party the day the photograph was taken. The winner in the Kids' Division will get a free whale watching cruise or a Gift Certificate for $25. So clean those lenses, sharpen your reflexes and start clicking.
 Maybe it was because of all the physical and emotional demands of 2005 that I began to contemplate a major change in my looks. I went for the hair. I have only had short hair a couple of times in my 50+ years and it was never really short. I wanted a drastic change and fought the same demons of rigidity as the man from New Orleans mentioned above. Yeah, I've always been a long-haired person, but why not do "something completely different," as Monty Python would say?
The initial cuts were mine. I took off 3" the first time. After a few weeks, off came several more inches. I shouldn't be allowed to have scissors, because I'm way too cavalier with them. I know this because of the looks professional stylists give me. It's that, "What was she thinking?" expression. We were up at the cabin. Our neighbor's visiting daughter-in-law is a hairdresser, so I enlisted her help after she was through rolling her eyes. Steph thought it looked great, even though he admitted he'd liked my hair long.
But I had it in mind to go really short. I wanted to see what it was like and even though my hair has no body, I thought it might look okay. Finally, I was ready for a salon. As I told the hairdresser after a fifteen minute description of my two month long progressive haircut leading up to the appointment, I'd taken off the majority of length to save her from my wrath if I really didn’t like it. But I did. And the shorter she cut, the better it looked. The surprise was a lot of body; who knew? Steph got a kick out of the new me emerging and by the time we were through, I looked very different.
Between Steph, breast cancer, the man from New Orleans and my haircut, I think I have the best lessons of 2005. Be thankful for what you have, question everything, fight back, strive to be flexible and don't be afraid of big changes. See you out there.
September 12, 2005: Music Scores Our Lives
Last month, I wrote in my Salinas Californian column about how I missed out on tickets for the Salinas Eagles concert. I said that great music scores our lives and so many Eagles’ songs score mine with direct hits. The morning the column came out, Marti Tennant emailed me. She said she enjoyed my writing and wanted to give me her pair of tickets. Imagine! Someone she has never met. I gratefully accepted and offered to take her and three friends whale watching in return; we set September 3rd for her adventure.
Steph and I had a great time at the concert. The band has managed to not only survive, but evolve; some of their newest songs were every bit as captivating as the older favorites. How could we repay Marti’s kindness?
 The day of her cruise, I drove the trip. We had humpbacks right outside the harbor and they gave us a dazzling display of cetacean pyrotechnics. We had five humpbacks around Princess of Whales. With eyes glued forward, where the whale kicking it up the most was last seen, we were treated to an explosive breach just a few hundred feet away! [This photo is by Jon McCormack:www.mccormackmedia.com.]
I was able to pay Marti back, but the world had taken a terrible turn between the time we were enthralled at the concert and Marti saw the magnificent whales. Hurricane Katrina gave our country the chance to learn that we really haven’t learned much since 9/11. Emergency response plans were gutted to fight terrorism, as though nature isn’t the most powerful terrorist of all.
Our own citizens were left without a plan in an area experts have known for years had the potential of a disaster of biblical proportions. No water, no food, no rescue for far too many. No hope. Their cries for help went unanswered. One reporter covering the awful story, when asked the difference between the Gulf and a Third World country, replied, “This is a Third World country.”
I’ll leave it to you to decide whether it was intentional to write off the poor who had no means of escape when told to evacuate, but it’s hard to argue New Orleans Native Son Aaron Neville was wrong when he sang Randy Newman’s song, “Louisiana 1927”:
They’re trying to wash us away,
They’re trying to wash us away.
Some things just don’t change.
A song we heard for the first time at the Eagles concert has played over and over in my head; it’s called “Hole in the World.” Written September 11, 2001, it’s eerily accurate in describing what’s happening in the Gulf:
They say that anger is just love disappointed.
They say that love is just a state of mind.
But all this fighting over who will be anointed,
Oh how can people be so blind?
They tell me there’s a place over yonder,
Cool water running through the burning sand.
Until we learn to love one another,
We will never reach the Promised Land.
There’s a hole in the world tonight,
There’s a cloud of fear and sorrow,
There’s a hole in the world tonight,
Don’t let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.
See you out there.
Bisco Rides & Everyone Smiles
Years ago, I had a great dog named Pearl who rode on my old BMW motorcycle with me. Pearl wasn't as long-legged as Bisco is, though, so Steph bought an old Harley with a sidecar. The two of them commute to the harbor and turn heads the entire trip. Even the salty old harbor locals gush over Bisco in her harness.
 Because she's a slender dog and the commute is often chilly, we got her a fleece-lined coat from L.L. Bean; they embroidered "Bisco" cross the back for free because we have a Bean Visa credit card. We get free shipping, too. Cool, huh?
What can be better than to have a reason to laugh out loud? People see her riding along jauntily, looking ahead and leaning into turns just before the bike enters them. It's a happy sight and few are immune to it.
Since Bisco is a Harley rider, we took her to Ocean Thunder, the biker bar in Monterey. Grizzled old bikers walked outside when she arrived. They stood there with pool cues in hand, grinning like babies. When she sauntered through the bar to the outside patio, they followed. She's not only a Happiness Ambassador, she has a pretty broad range of constituents.
We're happy to report the Bisco Fund for her Bro's and Sistuhs in the Gulf is up to $800.00 We started by donating $100.00 to the Humane Society of the U.S. (and $200.00 to the Red Cross) and the rest has been sent by our passengers who got to go whale watching for free if their donation matched or equaled ours.
Our business has been impacted by fuel prices and reduced bookings, so it isn't easy to give up the income. But we have to do this and know a lot of you feel the same way. Our offer remains on the table, so take us up on it and help the ones who can't help themselves, human or animal. Any major relief organization qualifies. Email me for details: mail@sanctuarycruises.com.
8/27/2005: All the Creatures
The past week, we saw almost every creature one could hope for on the Monterey Bay. Humpback whales have been the strongest, with a lot of cow and calf pairs. We even had some surprise visitors, common dolphins. Usually seen here in winter, they have been pretty spotty the past few years. However, there were thousands out there last week.
When Ed Hughes got this shot of a breaching humpback recently, I discovered it was his first. This was quite a surprise, since Ed's been out with us a lot and has exquisite photos to show for his time on the water. So many people say they wish they could get this one shot and you can see why. Nothing exemplifies the humpback's power and grace like a breach.
As I drove home today after the cruise, I listened to the news about Katrina and found myself wondering how the animals were doing with the the terrifying winds, floods, loss of their homes and even their owners.
Tonight, we got an email from the Humane Society: In response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, The HSUS has begun a massive relief effort to rescue animals and assist their caregivers in the disaster areas. Our highly trained Disaster Animal Response Teams are heading to Mississippi today to begin a multi-state animal rescue and recovery effort.
Please join us in making an emergency contribution. You can donate on their secure server by clicking the link below. ANY AMOUNT will help, so give what you can. Give $100.00 and we will take you whale watching for free. https://secure.hsus.org/01/katrina_relief/n- daxmtY19RtL?
Update on Humane Society Efforts: Facilities have been set up to care for sick and abandoned animals as well as to care for pets surrended until their owners can take care of basic needs. Money is needed for food, medicine and more. We're sending another $50.00 and hope you will, too.
Update on Our Resident Otter:
Dempsey on Beticia informed me he has named our new A Dock otter Gypsy. This makes perfect sense since Dempsey calls his cat Cat, which prompted me to call the otter Otter.
Ed Hughes was on a roll, because the same day he took his best and first breaching whale shot, he got this photograph of Gypsy. Or Otter. Your choice. Look at those teeth. Sharks have nothing on otters.
With the new bridge going in, we have a pile driver making a lot of noise next to our dock. When it's clanging and banging away, Gypsy takes a hike. So do we, as soon as we can!
To see and even buy some of Ed's gorgeous work, go to: www.edhughesphoto.com. See you out there.
8/18/2005: Whales & the Upwelling Update
Until the summer feeding season is over, we can't say how the loss of much of the spring upwelling will affect the whales and dolphins we see. So far, there has been a lot of bait fish out there and some krill, which is what the blues feed on.
We're seeing blues several times a week, resulting in some truly momentous sightings when they glide past on a loop preparing to dive. So far, so good in the dining department!
Teri Garcia got this shot of two humpbacks last week. It shows the typical summer conditions we've had: Calm water, overcast skies, excellent humpback activity. It's possible we've seen more humpback cow and calf pairs this year than in previous years, which is also a good sign.
Dolphins have been seen on every 2-3 cruises, with Risso's leading the list. Northern right whale dolphins have also been seen in good numbers a couple of recent days.
Orcas have charged in on several occasions recently (seven today!), often right outside of Moss Landing Harbor. We saw a pod of 6 or 7 a few days ago. Just before that, a lone male killed and ate what we suspect was a Steller sea lion, since its coat was golden, not brown like a California sea lion, nor spotted like a harbor seal. Steph picked up a sample and sent it on to biologists to ID.
Common murres, which seemed to suffer a lot from reduced food in the spring, are at least appearing with some chicks. I think we're seeing murres clustered together in larger groups right now. Maybe it's like how humans gather in times of stress or grief.
Scientists are reporting the ocean along the West Coast is now more in synch with a normal year. Temperatures have normalized, so the ultimate question is how far the fingers of a failed upwelling will reach, since a substantial leg of the food chain was missing.
We don't know the answer, but we're helping figure it out by picking up water samples and whale feces so scientists can piece the puzzle together. See you out there.
7/22/2005: The week was a very mixed bag, with either blue whales or humpback whales most of the days. Despite a failure of the upwelling usually created by spring winds, which fuels the plankton bloom and krill populations, the blues do seem to be feeding on something.
I ran a trip and we followed blues right along a depth contour line, which is how they move as they feed. These edges of the canyon are areas of concentration of food, but for animals with such huge needs, will it be enough? No one really knows. The humpbacks seem to be doing fine on the vast amounts of bait fish in the bay, but what is the bait eating, since it feeds on plankton?
Teri and Rick Garcia have been out with us several times this past year; they were especially excited to see and photograph blue whales. They joined us last week to celebrate their anniversary. Teri got several great shots.
Sunday, we had dense fog all across the bay, but Scott on Kahuna reported seeing a humpback several hours earlier as he left Moss Landing. It scared him, popping up very close to his boat. So we encouraged everyone to pay close attention and scan the misty waters. I shut Princess' engines down several times to listen for blows. It took 30 minutes, but Steph spotted a whale, a humpback!
We saw the whale a few times as I closed the distance, then it was gone. Scott was headed in and he offered to slow down since his deckhand was still cleaning salmon. He told his passengers he was looking for whales and one fellow said he'd just seen 2 behind them! So Scott and I retraced his course and found a humpback cow and calf that have frequently been seen near Moss Landing.
The calf was going off! It slapped its tail, threw High Ones in the air and lunge fed with its mom for over two hours. Repeatedly, they would veer over to our bow, making me think Scott had seen one of them earlier. Whales don't usually do this. The Monterey boats had to run halfway across the bay and couldn't stay long. Even so, they were treated to the fantastic action humpbacks are famous for.
Shauna Potocky of Seymour Marine Discovery Center up at UCSC's Long Marine Lab was on board. Shauna gets these updates and she decided she had to get out with us to see the summer whales. After the spectacle yesterday, she said it was her best whale watching cruise ever. Not bad for a day that never did see the sun, nor more than half a mile's visibility. See you out there.
7/12/2005 The Singers: We had such fun with a group of women from Ohio on a recent cruise. They were Terri Haught, Jan Milazzotto, Judy Szabo and Linda Morey; all turned out to be teachers who had come out with us based on the recommendation of another teacher friend of theirs, also from Ohio. She made them promise to go out with us if they got to California.
 A conference in Los Angeles for the National Education Association Representative Assembly brought them west, so naturally they made a detour our way. The reason they were so fun to have on Princess of Whales was because they sang almost the entire time, choosing their songs based on whatever we were saying in the narration. It was a little like having a parrot around. Birds will mimic you, but in their own way.
Not only were their voices excellent, these women laughed most of the time they weren't singing. I drove that trip and finally, I asked Steph to bring them onto the bridge so we could talk. Don't ask me what started it, but when one of them launched into the Doobie Brothers' "Black Water," we ALL started to sing it. It was just how things went around them. That is one cool song. See you out there.
6/28/2005: All the Characters on the Bay
The past week has been a wellspring for cetaceans on the bay. We've seen as many as three humpbacks at a time, close together and surfacing in such slow, easy movements even Stevie Wonder could photograph them.
Risso's dolphins are out there as well and in big pods. There are lots of babies with the mothers and they can be identified by their solid gray color and smaller dorsal fins (see the baby above?).
Pacific white-sided dolphins (PW's) are mixed in with the Risso's and have wowed passengers by racing up to our bows, turning on a dime and shooting ahead of us. Northern right whale dolphins (NRWD's) are there as well, but in smaller numbers recently.
Last Sunday, with several skilled spotters aboard (which included Brenden Cummings and Doug Bevington from the Center for Biological Diversity and Steve Johnston from the Monterey Bay Aquarium), we saw humpbacks, Risso's, PW's, Dall's porpoise, NRWD's, harbor porpoise and a mystery cetacean.
It was only after we'd left the mystery cetacean that we put it together we weren't sure what it was (we saw it with other animals). It was dark, a small whale or very large dolphin, with a relatively short dorsal fin on the center of its back. Beaked whale? Baby minke whale? Hard to say.
Steve and I also noticed four common murres out where we saw a lot of dolphins and it was unusual that they didn't dive as we went by. As you can see from Steve's photo, they look like small penguins and in fact, they share some traits with those birds. They lay one egg a year and incubate the egg up on their feet.
 We haven't seen or heard any baby murres on the bay yet. They have a distinctive call, sort of like, "WHEE-YOU!" The adults have more of a crow- like, "Caw-caw!" call. That's one of my big summer events, the arrival of the babies from their cliffside nests and I can't wait. See you there.
6/21/2005: "There's a long list of things whales don't tell us." I have said this to our passengers over the years with a mixture of wonder and delight. I marvel at the questions nature poses to the interested observer, and remain intrigued because we can't know all of the answers.
Katy Payne is a gifted bioacoustics researcher who helped give us some of our best and earliest looks into right whales. She and her husband at the time, Roger, studied right whales in Patagonia. But it was when Katy was observing elephants in a zoo that she made one of her most startling discoveries.
The elephants were vocalizing in such a low decibel range, humans couldn't hear them. But Katy felt the vibrations in her body and from that, she turned her attention to the study of their communications. After years of field studies in Africa, she has learned a lot about how elephants vocalize and when, but the clear nature of elephant's discussions is still a mystery.
The day of the recent earthquake when a tsunami warning was announced, we ran a stellar skunk trip on the Monterey Bay. The dolphins and humpbacks of the previous day were nowhere to be seen by any vessel off the central coast. Some days, we tend to take sea lions like this big guy for  granted, but not on a day when his species was the biggest marine mammal on the bay.
Melody Mazer was on that trip and she recalled the day the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. She said all of the cows near her home were lying in their pastures in an odd position. Driving home after her day at sea, Melody noticed the cows in the same odd position. She wondered if the cows and the disappearance of the cetaceans in the bay could be related. I posed her theory to Steph, who scoffed. "Where would they go!?" he asked. "Offshore," I replied. "Where they're in no danger of being tossed up on the beach. They sure weren't in nearshore waters!"
When the next day's cruise delivered a bounteous display of blue whales, humpbacks and dolphins, the theory seemed plausible. Maybe the whales and dolphins did sense the impending earth movement and shared our concern of a tsunami. But if this is so, why didn't further earthquakes last week prompt more exits for offshore waters?
Could their perception be so finely tuned that they knew the later aftershocks−as well as at least one additional, independent quake−were not a threat, just as our civil defense managers surmised? We can guess, theorize and rationalize, but in the end, Nature holds her secrets. See you out there.
6/14/2005: "Heidi, this is Joan Smith," the caller said. "Do you remember me?" I told her I know several Joan Smiths; I was thinking mostly of Joan and Max Smith in Salt Lake. We lived a few blocks apart and they even bought the house next to mine as a project for Max.
 "This is Joan Smith from Utah!" she said. Jeez, how long had it been? I left Utah in 1984 and soon after, ran away to sea. So what was Joan up to now? Visiting her mother in Santa Cruz, she decided it was time to see a whale. She had learned through her sister about my "new" direction and after hearing good things about Sanctuary Cruises from the locals, Joan called for reservations.
Simultaneously, Steph and I were plotting a weekend escape. We don't do this much but as part of my approach to fighting breast cancer, I find I'm more willing to give myself the luxury of a well-deserved break. Wouldn't you know, the only day Joan could catch our cruise was while we'd be gone.
But our captains took good care of our passengers, including on an early morning burial at sea, where they spotted a large pod of killer whales between the green buoy right outside the harbor and the MLA buoy, a mile offshore!
We talked to them after the burial and kept our fingers crossed for the whale watching cruise. That afternoon, we learned they'd found the orcas again, so Joan hit paydirt for her first whale watching cruise ever... except that orcas are really dolphins, now aren't they?
Last week, dolphins were plentiful and there were great sightings of humpbacks and orcas. The salmon bite has gotten much better, which could mean more humpbacks will be heading in. See you out there.
6/8/2005: Humpbacks, Orcas & Dolphin Messages
Never mind what I have said about killer whales and how they are going to disappear and not be seen for weeks, even months, now that spring's about over. Steph and Noel had a pod of about 8 orcas out there yesterday, including a male that was a juvenile the last time he was seen here. Now he's an imposing adult.
Watching these animals hunt is fascinating and so is trying to interpret why they do what they do. A female, having killed what looked to be a harbor seal, took a victory lap around our boat. Holding the animal in her teeth (you see a bit of it it here at right), she turned, swam up to our starboard side, dove under the boat and surfaced on the port side before taking the seal under to devour it.
 Imagine watching an animal as it chooses to swim ever closer as you stand there, transfixed. It dives mere feet from your feet. How could a visit to Sea World or Marine World ever equal the thrill? I know I say this a lot, but animals that range thousands of miles in nature have no business in these parks.
Conservation doesn't get a boost by people seeing marine mammals do tricks for them. Those people- and we do get a few of them onboard-think little of the animals in nature. They grow bored easily and even after an experience similar to the one you see here, yell, "Make it jump out of the water, make it do something cool!" You wouldn't recognize cool if it hit you between the eyes, I think to myself.
Then there are kids like the students at Biggs Middle School near Chico and Von Renner Elementary in Newman. One boy from Biggs yelled, "Thank you!" to the dolphins as they splashed all around us. The little Von Renner kids had challenging conditions for their cruises, yet they were buzzing like bees days later, still chattering about what they had seen on the bay.
Currently, we're seeing lots of humpbacks and spring's typical explosion in dolphin numbers (today Steph reports Pacific white-sided dolphins, northern right whale dolphins AND Risso's dolphins!). They're here to feed on the bait, which concentrates with the wind-driven upwelling. And yes, killer whales are still here. Perhaps they have taken up permanent residence; all I know is we've seen them every week for many months now.
Part Two: Dolphin Smiles, as Lisa Giesick Would Say
Several trips this past week featured dolphins in the thousands. Their splashes can add up to a roar as they shoot out of the water and careen back into it. Steph mentioned the other day that a lot of passengers seem to have a special affinity for dolphins. Of course, everyone loves them, but sometimes we see people overcome by emotion at the sight; this can be especially true of severely mentally handicapped passengers.
Barely aware of their surroundings, supported by a caregiver, they sit curled forward in a near fetal position at the start of the cruise. I don't question why they're on the boat, but I can't help wondering how much they comprehend.
 Then the dolphins dance in and eyes light up. Smiles appear on what had been vacant expressions. Someone who showed so little recognition of the world around him just minutes before now looks around and laughs out loud, the first noise we've heard from him since boarding. (This splashing Risso's dolphin was photographed by Katie Freeman, a woman who knows something about the excitement dolphins generate.)
Dolphins are the ancients compared with our total time on earth. It's not implausible to think they have secrets they might send us that bypass the brain and go straight for the heart. Whatever signals handicapped brains might miss, their hearts are wide open to the dolphins' joy and it's a pleasure to watch. See you out there.
6/3/2005: Orcas, Humpbacks, Peace and Radiation
With the Monterey boats crying the blues last week, Steph headed out of the harbor slowly, while he and Noel scanned for the orcas we've seen so often in the area. Darn if they didn't find the 3 female killer whales with the juvenile within a mile of the jetties. A call to the Monterey boats resulted in several diverting to catch the action.
Why do these animals like this area so much? Well, it has a lot of food, thanks to the sea lions and harbor seals that are always there. Orcas like blubber and both of these species have it in abundance.
Humpbacks were way out one day and even though it was a long and expensive run, Steph had a "friendly" that spyhopped near them and stayed with the boat quite a while.
Then the next day, humpbacks were just a few miles out, along with Risso's and Pacific white-sided dolphins. Whale watching has been a lot better than salmon fishing. There is plenty of bait, but it seems as though the salmon aren't coming up from cooler waters to feed with anywhere near the zeal expected. Some of the fishers say it's just too warm for them. I guess if they get hungry enough...
Okay, I'm partial, but I really do believe there's nothing like the sea and its creatures to restore your faith in the world. When Community Human Services was given a grant to treat their staff to a rejuvenating break from reality, they decided to go whale watching with us. Chad Hammack wrote this after their cruise:
"What struck me was the look in the eyes of my counselors. They deal on a daily basis with human misery, suffering, anxiety, heartbreak, as do all who toil in this field. It is hard not to carry around the weighty feelings that grow out of client interactions. But as we left shore, something almost transfiguring began to take place.
"Everything was being left behind; pretty soon landmarks disappeared, houses, freeways, as well as the very human dramas that play themselves out every day. I was watching three of the counselors and it was almost as if with each breath they were sighing and breathing out their own anxieties and burdens, letting go in a meditation of sea and sky.
"One of them remarked about 15 minutes out, 'God, I love this. This is the best day of the year.' Immediately another said, 'This is the best day I can remember.' Eyes were on far horizons and the lilt of the waves was hypnotic as it transported them farther away from the cares of an increasingly distant shore.
"Going to the beach or even the mountains can be restful, but going to sea is transformative, even if it is only for a few hours. And of course the other worldliness was amplified by the majestic creatures that swam into view.
"The most telling comment was from one of the counselors as we headed back in: 'I can't explain it, but this has filled me with hope again.' As, I think, it did for all of us, a true rejuvenation and reminder of what it is to be alive and connected to earth and each other
Radiation: First of all, thanks to those of you who have asked how I'm doing. I'm doing well and can't wait to run the trip on Princess of Whales tomorrow. Radiation is supposed to be tiring, but a recent study found women who exercised regularly didn't experience the fatigue of those who didn't, so maybe my workouts are helping.
The radiation department at CHOMP (Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula) is delightful and I look forward to my visits. They have a neat hot drink machine that makes great coffee, which I have upon arrival, and green tea (full of anti-oxidants and very good for you), which I have as I leave.
Patients dash into the dressing rooms, slip on a gown and wait their turn. Women like me get to leave clothing on from the waist down. I am using these treatments as an excuse to ride my motorcycle and suspect I may well be the first woman to hop on the table with cowboy boots that have glitter applied to the seam between the sole and the boot.
The linear accelerator, or big ray gun, is in a spacious room. Music is playing and I've liked all of it, especially the old John Klemmer that was on the first morning, with his hauntingly beautiful sax. There are large, pretty, local photos on clear panels above (my friend Laurie says her facility had five stick-on glow in the dark stars). The machine rotates around the table I lie on. All of the techs have been friendly and encouraging.
Julie, who did my initial workup, put 2 tiny tattoos on me to mark the target area. (To think I resisted a tattoo all these years and now this!). She and Neil, my doc, were thrilled to find my surgeon had left several tiny surgical clips in me where he removed the tumor. "Isn't that like leaving forceps behind?" I asked. I always thought that was a bad idea. But they informed me these clips are their trail of crumbs to know where the tumor was, so they can more accurately target the beam. This is a big deal, so remember it for yourself or others. Not all surgeons do it, even though they are asked to by radiation oncologists.
Once on the table, the techs move it/me, aligning the tattoos with laser beams coming out of a small opening in the ceiling. Eat your heart out, Star Wars. Then they leave and a buzzer sounds while the machine is activated. The length of time depends on the dosage; I get about 30 seconds from two angles, then I'm out of there. There is no pain, but there will be discomfort as the skin shows the effects of the radiation. Aloe and hydrocortisone ought to take care of this temporary situation.
The people being treated are more open and friendly than most people you meet; I think it's because we're all in the same boat. Veneers are peeled away and vexations of everyday life are recognized as insignificant. We laugh with gusto over almost anything. Look for the good and hang onto it. See you out there.
Spring: 6/3/2005: Orcas, Humpbacks, Peace and Radiation
With the Monterey boats crying the blues last week, Steph headed out of the harbor slowly, while he and Noel scanned for the orcas we've seen so often in the area. Darn if they didn't find the 3 female killer whales with the juvenile within a mile of the jetties. A call to the Monterey boats resulted in several diverting to catch the action.
Why do these animals like this area so much? Well, it has a lot of food, thanks to the sea lions and harbor seals that are always there. Orcas like blubber and both of these species have it in abundance.
Humpbacks were way out one day and even though it was a long and expensive run, Steph had a "friendly" that spyhopped near them and stayed with the boat quite a while.
Then the next day, humpbacks were just a few miles out, along with Risso's and Pacific white-sided dolphins. Whale watching has been a lot better than salmon fishing. There is plenty of bait, but it seems as though the salmon aren't coming up from cooler waters to feed with anywhere near the zeal expected. Some of the fishers say it's just too warm for them. I guess if they get hungry enough...
Okay, I'm partial, but I really do believe there's nothing like the sea and its creatures to restore your faith in the world. When Community Human Services was given a grant to treat their staff to a rejuvenating break from reality, they decided to go whale watching with us. Chad Hammack wrote this after their cruise:
"What struck me was the look in the eyes of my counselors. They deal on a daily basis with human misery, suffering, anxiety, heartbreak, as do all who toil in this field. It is hard not to carry around the weighty feelings that grow out of client interactions. But as we left shore, something almost transfiguring began to take place.
"Everything was being left behind; pretty soon landmarks disappeared, houses, freeways, as well as the very human dramas that play themselves out every day. I was watching three of the counselors and it was almost as if with each breath they were sighing and breathing out their own anxieties and burdens, letting go in a meditation of sea and sky.
"One of them remarked about 15 minutes out, 'God, I love this. This is the best day of the year.' Immediately another said, 'This is the best day I can remember.' Eyes were on far horizons and the lilt of the waves was hypnotic as it transported them farther away from the cares of an increasingly distant shore.
"Going to the beach or even the mountains can be restful, but going to sea is transformative, even if it is only for a few hours. And of course the other worldliness was amplified by the majestic creatures that swam into view.
"The most telling comment was from one of the counselors as we headed back in: 'I can't explain it, but this has filled me with hope again.' As, I think, it did for all of us, a true rejuvenation and reminder of what it is to be alive and connected to earth and each other
First of all, thanks to those of you who have asked how I'm doing. I'm doing well, and can't wait to run the trip on Princess of Whales tomorrow. Radiation is supposed to be tiring, but a recent study found women who exercised regularly didn't experience the fatigue of those who didn't, so maybe my workouts are helping.
The radiation department at CHOMP (Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula) is delightful and I look forward to my visits. They have a neat hot drink machine that makes great coffee, which I have upon arrival, and green tea (full of anti- oxidants and very good for you), which I have as I leave.
Patients dash into the dressing rooms, slip on a gown and wait their turn. Women like me get to leave clothing on from the waist down. I am using these treatments as an excuse to ride my motorcycle and suspect I may well be the first woman to hop on the table with cowboy boots that have glitter applied to the seam between the sole and the boot.
The linear accelerator, or big ray gun, is in a spacious room. Music is playing and I've liked all of it, especially the old John Klemmer that was on the first morning, with his hauntingly beautiful sax. There are large, pretty, local photos on clear panels above (my friend Laurie says her facility had five stick-on glow in the dark stars). The machine rotates around the table I lie on. All of the techs have been friendly and encouraging.
Julie, who did my initial workup, put 2 tiny tattoos on me to mark the target area. (To think I resisted a tattoo all these years and now this!). She and Neil, my doc, were thrilled to find my surgeon had left several tiny surgical clips in me where he removed the tumor. "Isn't that like leaving forceps behind?" I asked. I always thought that was a bad idea. But they informed me these clips are their trail of crumbs to know where the tumor was, so they can more accurately target the beam. This is a big deal, so remember it for yourself or others. Not all surgeons do it, even though they are asked to by radiation oncologists.
Once on the table, the techs move it/me, aligning the tattoos with laser beams coming out of a small opening in the ceiling. Eat your heart out, Star Wars. Then they leave and a buzzer sounds while the machine is activated. The length of time depends on the dosage; I get about 30 seconds from two angles, then I'm out of there. There is no pain, but there will be discomfort as the skin shows the effects of the radiation. Aloe and hydrocortisone ought to take care of this temporary situation.
The people being treated are more open and friendly than most people you meet; I think it's because we're all in the same boat. Veneers are peeled away and vexations of everyday life are recognized as insignificant. We laugh with gusto over almost anything. Look for the good and hang onto it. See you out there.
5/19/2005: Orcas and Baird's Beaked Whales!
Last Friday, we had kids from Biggs Middle School out with us. Biggs is near Chico and some of these kids had never seen the ocean before. They made up for what they've been missing by seeing humpbacks, Pacific white-sided dolphins, northern right whale dolphins and Risso's dolphins, all within a mile of each other.
Then J.D., who runs the Moss Landing Marine Labs research vessel Sheila B., gave us a call to say orcas were located just outside our harbor, so off we went to see the killer whales. A call to the Monterey boats resulted in three of them cruising our way to catch the wild show as well and one of them would be able to re-pay the favor the next day.
That would be when another captain out there and I were discussing the humpbacks on the bay as I headed his way. He reported a large number of humpbacks near his boat, then corrected himself. "It's not humpbacks, it's Baird's beaked whales!" he exclaimed.
Having never seen them, who knew what to expect? The other captain thought the whales would sound for around 40 minutes, so after they dove, he headed off to visit a humpback. He planned to return to catch the next surfacing of the Baird's beaked whales.
But a few minutes after he left, I c alled on the radio to tell him they'd surfaced not far behind his boat. By this time, our passengers were into the big Easter egg hunt (what a prize!) and patiently waited between 5 and 23 minutes for the whales to surface.
When they did, they breathed rapidly, which is why the other captain had initially thought there were more of them, but we were able to establish there were three whales. Their blows were low, bushy and fast. They didn't show a lot of themselves, which is why this picture by our buddy A.J. Young is so impressive. Note the large, rounded head and the surprisingly long beak far to the right of it.
These are such elusive whales, it's hard to know how many there are. Some marine mammal guides estimate perhaps as few as 20,000-30,000 exist, with most of the sightings near Japan. Unfortunately, Japan is still killing and eating Baird's beaked whales, while we were enchanted to be able to watch them for a little while, knowing we may never see one again. Talk about bragging rights! See you out there.
5/3/2005: Orcas and Humpbacks Everywhere
Vern Fisher is a photographer for the Monterey County Herald. With all of the orca sightings on the bay, his editor Royal Calkins sent him out with us. This happened the same day that Florian Graner joined us. Florian is a marine biologist and nature filmmaker. He's also and an incredible underwater videographer and has done things that make my skin crawl, such as a deepwater shoot in the middle of the night, under ice, alone. But he's brought back video of creatures never before seen and his work is regularly viewed in nature documentaries in several countries.
Those of you who have read Eye of the Whale about the California gray whale may remember Florian was with me on Sea Dog the day I took Dick Russell, who was writing Eye, out to see the grays. That day, we witnessed the unusual sight of a gray whale feeding on krill swarms at the surface.
Vern, Florian and I were on Princess of Whales when Steph eased in with orcas. They seemed to be hunting, criss-crossing the near shore waters off Pebble Beach, and several times, surfaced very close to us, just in case we had a gray whale cow and calf stowed away on our boat. One such sighting came after the killer whales had been down a few minutes. They emerged so close and so fast that I instinctively pressed the shutter release on my camera, but thought all I would net from the effort was a picture of black. Or white. Maybe some of both.
Vern's photograph was featured the next day in the Herald. Florian's shots may end up in a BBC TV gray whale documentary he is currently working on. Mine will appear on our web site.
Last Friday, we had a large gathering of employees and board members from Community Human Services on board for a charter. They address drug and alcohol problems, domestic violence and much more. As Steph put it, "What people do wrong to themselves and other people." Everyone feels overworked and under appreciated at times, so it was especially rewarding to be part of the reward for this group, which received an anonymous grant for employee enrichment.
Their day dawned sunny and calm. We had a beautiful sandwich bar arranged across the buffet area in Princess of Whales' cabin complete with salads, salty nibbles and a very popular assortment of homemade cookies and brownies. Guests dined and socialized as we cut across sparkling waters. I put out a call on the VHF frequency used by the sport fishers who are out for salmon this time of year. I asked if anyone had seen whales or dolphins yet.
This task is not for the faint of heart. Some think we're against fishing and they can be pretty nasty, but lately, several fishers have come to their and our defense. "We're not all like that," a fellow recently told Steph after a surly response to the question. But on this day, I was inundated with responses. One fisherman had seen a humpback whale by Mulligan Hill, which is pretty close to Moss Landing. As I turned that way, another fisher came up on the radio. He had orcas farther out. Then another fisherman got on the radio to tell me about some Risso's dolphins.
I was scrambling to talk to all of them and Steph, who was up top spotting, when another guy got on the radio to ask our company name. I told him and asked why. He said he had relatives coming in from Europe and whale watching "would be their cup of tea. I figured they should go with you," he continued, "since you always find whales." With a little help from our friends this day.
We decided to head out for the orcas, where "C.J." or maybe it was "Sea Jay," informed me the animals were milling around. It was a good call. The orcas were indeed in a relaxed mode and they barely moved a tenth of a mile in over an hour. The folks on board had a grand time and we even were able to show them a couple of humpbacks before the cruise had ended. After the many weather scrubs of winter, it was good medicine for all of us. See you out there.
Falling Down the Rabbit Hole: A diagnosis of breast cancer is like falling down the rabbit hole. Things aren't as they seem and you're not sure how you got here from there. Then you meet new characters and they turn out to be very helpful in navigating this odd world, so you can get out and back to the one that was pretty good before. Here is part three of a four part series on this most unexpected journey:
Once I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I called Blue Cross to see what our insurance covered. I was pleased to find that our policy, which covers just about nothing short of a major injury or disease, considers breast cancer major. I chose Dr. Verlenden in Monterey as my surgeon, based on a recommendation by my gynecologist, Virginia Hanson. My husband Steph was actively involved from the start. He and I both went into the exam room, but he got to keep his clothes on.
Dr. V., as he calls himself, asked if I knew the diagnosis of the needle biopsy. I did. I had a low grade, non-aggressive tumor at 10 o'clock in my right breast. It's ironic they locate the tumor in this manner; we call out the location of whale sightings around our boat the same way. The doctor took the time to carefully describe the disease and options to deal with it. He answered all of our questions and we left feeling we'd chosen a winner. This impression has only grown.
Surgery for a lumpectomy would be done at CHOMP on an out-patient basis. The day of surgery, I'd go back to the Breast Care Center where Dr. Roux, who did the needle biopsy, would mark the tumor using fine wires. This isn't how all facilities handle it.
My friend Laurie lives near the Sierra. She went through treatment for breast cancer there late last year. Before surgery, she was put in a room with a felt pen and told to circle the lump. Really! "That's because they knew you didn't have insurance," I explained to her. "But they must have known you have money in savings. Otherwise, they'd have had you circle the lump, then handed you a bag with 'DIYBSK' on it. You know, Do It Yourself Breast Surgery Kit. Inside, there would be a knife and a Band-Aid." Steph reveled in the laughter my conversations with Laurie resulted in.
Because Dr. Roux would be gone for a week, I had the option of having someone else mark the tumor, or waiting for her. I was inclined to wait because I really like her. I asked Dr. V. what he would do. "Susan Roux is tops in her field," he said, "Wait." Steph joined me for the "needle loc" and was able to see why my diagnosis hadn't been the nightmare one might expect. Dr. Roux and Carlita Miraco, the radiology technician, were like old friends. Dr. Roux numbed the breast before inserting the thin, flexible wires. As with the needle biopsy, the only pain I felt was from one shot, perhaps because the tumor was on a nerve.
Steph joined me for the "needle loc" and was able to see why my diagnosis hadn't been the nightmare one might expect. Dr. Roux and Carlita Miraco, the radiology technician, were like old friends. Dr. Roux numbed the breast before inserting the thin, flexible wires. As with the needle biopsy, the only pain I felt was from one shot, perhaps because the tumor was on a nerve.
Dr. Roux inserted the needles, using ultrasound to place them. I told her our neighbor Neil Glover, who is a radiation oncologist, would handle my radiation treatments. "I can't believe I'm going to be baring my breast to a Republican!" I wailed in mock misery. "But Neil is a friend, he has a great reputation and if this doesn't work out, I know where to find him."
At CHOMP, I was prepared for surgery. The nurses were warm and friendly. A doc from nuclear medicine injected radioactive material into the breast. Dr. V. would use a Geiger Counter to locate the Sentinel Node, the first lymph node in the chain of command from the breast. It would automatically be removed and tested for spread of the disease. Years ago, they removed as many lymph nodes as possible, but that added to the pain and discomfort. Now, they know they can be more selective. Again, one of the shots was painful. "No wonder," the doctor kindly remarked. "I'm putting needles where they never were meant to be!" My sentiments exactly. Steph waited with me until I was wheeled away. I went straight into the operating room; Laurie had lain in a cold hall for two hours.
When I awoke, I felt so relieved. My recovery room nurse greeted me cheerfully and I was out of there in fifteen minutes. I'd have six weeks of radiation treatments after healing, but my sole concerns were whether the Sentinel Node was clear, if margins around the removed tumor were wide enough and whether the tumor was hormone receptive. All would become clear from the pathology reports in a few days.
[I put Part 4 of this series below, out of context, for continuity.]
Part Four: Breast Cancer: I Never Expected This/What I’ve Learned
In less than one month, I found a lump in my breast, it was diagnosed as breast cancer and I had it removed. My husband Steph and I were dazzled by the doctors, nurses and technicians on my case. They made a tough time so much easier for us both.
Five days after surgery, we met with my surgeon, Dr. Verlenden. The Sentinel Node had been removed and it was clear; no cancer had spread to it. Margins around the tumor were 10 mm everywhere but in one place; there, it was only 1mm. I’d just been through breast surgery, my worst nightmare, and I knew my smartest move would be to go back into surgery to widen the margin. Dr. V. agreed and said it would be fast; I could even skip the general anesthetic.
Surgery was scheduled for the next week. Steph would take me again, but I wanted it over as soon as possible. CHOMP and Dr. V. worked to fit me in even earlier and a week after the first operation, I was back at the hospital. We had a big cruise that day, so I insisted Steph work. Our great friend, Ardie Kelly, handled transportation. She’d been a busy woman, also delivering books and home-cooked meals after the first surgery.
Claudia Conner was my pre-op nurse. We had a delightful conversation as she prepped me for surgery. In the operating room, Dr. Tackas introduced himself as my anesthesiologist. I explained numbing shots in one area had been painful and he suggested he give me something to calm me, then put me out for just that short time during the shots. Good man!
Next thing I knew, Dr. V. was working away. Bleck! To keep my mind off what he was doing, I told stories from the book I’m writing. Everyone on the O.R. team said they want a copy, which is one hell of a way to sell books. We laughed throughout the operation and by the time I was rolled into Recovery, Dr. Tackas was checking details for whale watching. Talk about multitasking; book and whale watching promotion while in surgery.
I was out of recovery in minutes. Ardie delivered me to Moss Landing where I met up with Steph and Biscuit for a beach walk. It was good therapy.
Although the oncologist comes into the picture after surgery, this doctor heads the team for the duration. Dr. V. referred me to Dr. Hausdorff, a friendly and thoughtful oncologist in Monterey who is so beloved by his staff, several told me, “You’re really lucky you chose him.”
Pathology reports confirmed the tumor was hormone receptive (HR positive), which Dr. Hausdorff explained is good. This is because we now have the drug Tamoxifen, which blocks the estrogen receptor in HR positive breast tumors. It’s considered the gold standard for reducing the risk of reoccurrence of early stage breast cancer and increasing patients’ survival rates. I will take it for years.
What have I learned on this journey so far? Apparently my annual donations to The American Cancer Society and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation weren’t enough to keep me safe, but I will continue to support both. So much progress has been made lately in this fight for a cure.
A woman’s risk for breast cancer increases with age. Early detection is the best protection from the big 3: chemotherapy, mastectomy and death. Breast self exams are crucial, as are mammograms. If there is any doubt from a questionable mammogram, consider an ultrasound or needle biopsy.
A huge finding for me was that we have great people out there to help us navigate breast cancer. My experience has been with Monterey doctors and CHOMP and it has been very, very good. Wherever you turn, ask questions and don’t compromise.
If someone you know is fighting breast cancer, ask what you can do to help, but be prepared to hear, “Nothing, thanks.” I believe providing a caring ear, some flowers from your garden and a meal dropped off with minimal fuss could elevate you to Godlike status, but let’s not forget humor. It helps clear the mind and ease the soul.
I chose to keep quiet with all but a few folks at first, because I didn’t want to waste energy consoling the consolers. Also, I have Steph. I wish everyone could have such a valiant partner in this fight. If you don’t, reach out to a support group (see below); you’ll find gentle, caring people.
I decided to write this series─which is similar to taking one’s clothes off and walking down Main Street─because it might help someone else; I hope it does. See you out there.
Breast Cancer Battle Resources:
Explore these links to learn more about local and national resources to fight breast cancer:
Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula has helpful information for newly diagnosed breast cancer patients and their loved ones, including a weekly support group. www.chomp.org/class_events/pages/cancer.html#01
The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has a single mission: to end breast cancer. They offer a wide range of information both online and in their newsletter. www.komen.org
The American Cancer Society’s web site covers all cancers, with extensive breast cancer resources. www.americancancersociety.org
4/20/2005: The Orca Hunt
What a wild spring it has been so far! We've seen incredible sights, including more attacks on gray whales by killer whales. How I wish this didn't have to happen, and yet it gives us the opportunity to see a lot of orcas and learn about how they operate as a pod. This photo shows a large male and the baby gray. It probably didn't survive the day.
This is not a bloody feeding frenzy as you might see on land with wolves and an elk, since much of the action is below the surface. But what you do see is orcas jumping, slapping their flukes, circling and doing their best to separate the gray whale cows from their calves.
Bruce Naliboff and his wife Candace stayed at Captain's Inn in Moss Landing Friday night and loved it. They went whale watching with us the next day and we saw something like 12 killer whales, some Risso's dolphins and the unfortunate gray whale cow and calf that triggered the hunt for the calf.
This is one of Bruce's photos from the trip. After the cruise, Bruce and Candace headed off to see Jimmy Buffet in concert. Talk about a slam dunk great weekend.
4/1/2005: The Missing Gray Whale Photos
Andrew Bower has got to be one of the cooler people I've run across. Following a whale watching cruise he and his wife joined us for, he emailed some pictures he'd taken. "Thanks for a great trip last month," he wrote. "My wife and I really enjoyed it. We were fortunate to see lots of whales and the information given during the cruise was great. I have attached a few photos that I took during the day. Regards, Andrew."
I was in my usual haste when I looked at the attached pictures. They were very good and I immediately wrote back and asked permission to use them, which was granted. But it wasn't until recently that two things happened on the same day. First, I went to "My Pictures" on the computer that was specially designed to make my life hell and discovered my substantial folder of gray whale photographs was missing. Completely.
 It can't really be gone, I thought, or can it? I combed through all of the folders and so far, it's not there. Oh, I probably will find it. I certainly hope I do! But this inspired me to go back to our emails and look at Andrew's photos again. What I found was such a complete marvel that my mouth hung open in wonder.
Not only are there fantastic flukes with water spilling from them, but there are the story shots, the ones that allude to what the whales were doing (including a little foreplay) and what they've encountered in their years. One had a large open wound and another had rake marks on its back, both most likely evidence of encounters with killer whales.
Then there are the photos of a large raft of sea otters outside Moss Landing Harbor, close-ups of an otter with a crab in its mouth, sea lions on the MLA buoy. All in one cruise, I kept saying to myself. If you'd like to see the complete collection, go to: http://heideseekie.com/MontereyPics.html
To think Andrew was so cool about it all. Had I taken those shots, I'd have been jumping around like a kangaroo.
So in one day, I lost my gray whale photos and discovered a mother lode of new ones, all on the same computer. Go figure. See you out there.
[I realized later that I do have a back-up of photgraphs on an external hard drive. Of course, I had recently sorted hundreds of whale photographs by species and put them into their individual folders and the hard drive version is not sorted, but at least they're there.]
3/9/05: Sleek Black Surprises
When it comes to new experiences, we have had a bumper crop this winter. There have been huge influxes of Risso's dolphins after a surprising visitation by Humboldt squid; a very late gray whale calf born on the southbound migration. Risso's playing with our boats, which they don't usually do; another strong year of gray whale births, even though the scientists predicted a flat year because last winter's births were an all-time record.
So what else could surprise us? Try a huge pod of northern right whale dolphins (NRWD's) just tearing across the ocean. We often see them with Risso's and Pacific white-sided dolphins, but usually only a few dozen, never a concentration like this and all by itself. There were so many, I am convinced at times 50 of them were out of the water at one time as they swam and jumped. They are the original turbo- charged precision swim team.
Remember Ed Hughes, who won our photo contest? He and his family won a free trip, so they came out with us Saturday. They were able to witness another all-time great, new experience and Ed captured photos of it. If you'd like to see his outstanding work and perhaps purchase prints, go to: http://ehughes.smugmug.com
NRWD's are sleek and black; from a distance, can be confused with underfed sea lions. But on closer inspection, you see a thin beak, white on the lower jaw and belly and at the aft end, flukes, not flippers.
They were blasting to the northwest when we spotted them, so I turned Princess of Whales and headed their way. We had to work against the swell to reach them, making for a bouncy ride. Even once we caught up, I couldn't slow down for long because they were just zooming.
 We hung around for a few minutes--long enough for Ed to work his magic--then we were off to another big pod of Risso's dolphins. In one day, we had numerous California gray whales, the NRWD's and the Risso's. Plus, we saw several black-footed albatross. They were closer in than usual and gave us a couple of great fly bys.
Maybe the unusual sightings will quiet down soon, but they sure have piqued our interest in how spring sightings might go. A friend in Oregon had an understated demeanor. His response to anything from an engine knock to a stunning sunset to a rocky relationship was, "Let her develop." I'm sure he'd say the same thing about spring on the Monterey Bay. See you out there.
3/3/05: Spring is Springing!
As much of the rest of the country contends with snow and frigid temperatures, we're celebrating spring. We're seeing a great mix on the bay these days and some new behavior. Why? An update on our puppy Sea Biscuit and a way to help fight for the whales, all below!
 Fed
up with dark days and the rains of February, Steph and
I decided to paint our house. The entire interior was
off white because we have so little time for the house
and couldn't decide what color to paint it, anyway.
It was as dreary as the weather. As always with our
winters here, we had those drop dead gorgeous days,
but too few to please us. Boy, were we sick of the weather!
Then Steph suggested painting the living room peach with turquoise trim. Peach! It made perfect sense since we have a lot of wood and brass and an interesting verdigris copper fireplace facade. But we didn't just go with peach. He painted the base color, then I did a distressed yellow fresco over it. The trim will have moss green worked into it, adding to the verdigris theme. Since the living room is open to the kitchen, the kitchen is headed toward a yellow, tan and peach fresco. The halls are peach and yellow and the bathroom is brilliant turquoise which will be lightened and darkened by white and moss fresco splotches and swipes. It all looks like a happy accident and was exactly what we needed to get out of winter's grasp.
As though prompted by the warm, cheerful colors inside, our garden reciprocated. Daffodils are in bloom, jasmine perfumes the air and wild mustard is filling fields with a riot of yellow. In keeping with this explosion of nature on shore, March is the month when we can expect anything on the Monterey Bay. Gray whales are migrating north, the Risso's are still here, early humpbacks can show up any time and so can killer whales.
As recently as yesterday, we saw lots of Risso's dolphins, with more headed up from the south. Gray whales are ambling through, sometimes in such large clusters that it's boggling. Last Saturday was one of those times. We must have had 15 whales around us and they were going so slow that I had to pull the boat out of gear completely many times.
On Sunday, we had an unusual experience. Risso's dolphins played with Princess of Whales as though they were Pacific white-sided dolphins or common dolphins. Risso's usually ignore us and don't play on our bow waves. But these animals were cutting in ahead of us, zigzagging back and forth and just ripping it up! A 6 foot long dolphin jumping at your bows is exciting. A 12 foot Risso's doing this takes your breath away. 3 or 4 of them at a time? Wild. This is Teri Garcia's picture from an earlier cruise and it perfectly captures the excitement of a jumping Risso's. For over an hour, we had Risso's streaking along our sides, charging up from the deep to our bows and generally causing a frenzy.
What could have caused such a remarkable change in behavior? I've thought it over. All I can come up with is this: maybe it's what Risso's do to celebrate the approach of spring. After all, I'm pretty sure they can't paint. See you out there.
 Biscuit
Update: Biscuit has grown a good deal, but she won't
be a full lab size. She continues to deserve the nickname
Sharky the Sharkiologist (which we swiped from a favorite
passenger of ours by the same name). She greeted us
on the bridge a few weeks ago with a torn up roll of
paper towels which she had pulled out of a cabinet.
She delights in eviscerating stuffed toys, as evidenced
by all of the stuffing floating around the house. She
loves the beach and is now confident enough that she
charges into the water and bites IT (nothing is safe
from her teeth). She is also very happy and has shown
a real fondness for the captain's chair. If you're wondering
where we sit when we drive the trips, join the club;
so are we.
Last month, NRDC began making their case aginst deadly sonar directly to NATO officials. Now it's critically important that they hear a worldwide outcry from concerned citizens in support of this important cause.
Want to help protect whales? Go to: http://www.savebiogems.org/whales/takeaction.asp and give them a voice. Send a message to the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and to NATO ambassadors, urging their member countries to stop deploying high-powered sonar systems in sensitive whale habitats around the world.
As the military alliance of 26 nations -- including the United States -- NATO includes the world's biggest users of lethal military sonar. In fact, several mass strandings of whales have been linked directly to joint NATO exercises, including strandings in the Canary Islands and along the coast of Greece.
There is no dispute that intense bursts of high- powered sonar can and do kill whales. The scientists of the International Whaling Commission have stated that the evidence linking such naval sonar to whale strandings appears "overwhelming." So let's fight back, okay?
2/23/05: Weather and Dolphins
Weather and dolphins have shared the headlines lately. We're expecting better weather and lots of dolphins, as well as gray whales, on cruises this week.
Risso's
dolphins have been incredible this winter, so the Monterey
Herald did a front page story on them in today's issue
("Risso's dolphins making big splash"). If
you have a chance, pick up a copy. I got a real kick
out of it because not one but two of you, our passengers,
have photographs in the print version! (The story is
online, but no photos.)
Whenever we're interviewed for a story on the whales and dolphins we see out there, I offer pictures. I guess I could only submit our own photos, but you make the effort to send us yours and sometimes, they are smashing. Of the three passengers' photos I sent the Herald, two were used: This is Nadya Ramsaroop's lovely side shot and Alice Steele's Risso's flukes are below. As I told Alice, this is the first shot of Risso's flukes we've ever gotten. I will laminate a few copies for the boats and will save Nadya and Alice copies. They'll be on the boat waiting for you two.
 |
| Here is Alice Steele's shot. |
Forecasting weather is an inexact science. Or maybe it's an exact science with inexact results. All we know is last weekend was miserable. On Saturday, conditions were a go at cruise time, but they went into the toilet soon after.
Talking with the Monterey guys to compare notes and decide whether to turn around, my mind was made up when Danny said his boat was a mile off the coast and he couldn't see it for the rain. We don't get rain that heavy very often. When it do, it doesn't last. But this did. After I turned Princess around, Danny said the rain had grown worse, with no space between drops on the ocean!
We had a burial at sea charter on Sanctuary for Mildred Martin, a woman who chose us and the day of her service before she died. Mildred wanted friends and family to celebrate her "birthday," the day she began her new existence, on a different level than the one she had lived on. She hoped her group could see whales and dolphins on their cruise and allowed several hours to ensure it.
Unfortunately, what they saw most was rain and rough seas. But this was a hearty group and they elected to stick it out right up until our skipper Scott announced it was a scrub due to deteriorating conditions. They were able to perform the scattering, but will come back on a better day to enjoy part two of the celebration. As Mildred's daughter Valerie put it, "She was in charge. She chose it. We'll be back!"
We had an equally spunky group on our whale watching cruise aboard Princess of Whales. The Beautal party made it a two state family reunion. Teresa Giffen drove all the way from the Sacramento area with three others because her office workers had raved about our cruises. You'd think these folks would have been pretty cranky when we decided to turn around after 45 minutes, docking 1 1/2 hours from the time we departed and giving them rainchecks for another day. But they weren't. Far from it.
The docking was interesting, thanks to powerful southeast winds and a maximum ebb that was moving a huge amount of water because the tide had been very high and was going down to a minus low, plus all the rain runoff. I worked way up by the bridge, then twin-screwed the boat at the highest RPMs I have ever used to dock her. She slid into her berth as though she was on tracks.
I went downstairs to issue rainchecks and was greeted by beaming faces, including Alice Beautal, who is 90 years old and cute as a bug. [In July of 2009, Nancy Beautel and several family members rented our largest vacation cabin on the Trinity River for several days! Nancy was part of the group aboard the boat with Alice.] She declared she'd had a ball and couldn't wait to go again. A lot of people nodded in agreement. "Shoot," I told them, "if you had this much fun on a crappy day, imagine what it will be like if we show you whales!" They're coming back in the spring with more people.
Sunday dawned with decent conditions, but a forecast of gale force winds in the afternoon. Despite what looked like a calm bay, we had no choice but to cancel it and postpone our Seymour Marine Discovery Center benefit cruise until this coming Sunday, Feb 27. We had Dick Russell and his wife Alice up here from L.A. so Dick could be onboard Sunday to sign the paperback version of his great gray whale book Eye of the Whale. They couldn't stay the week, so he signed the books and they'll be available on our boats and by mail order.
Steph and I took Biscuit to Asilomar beach later that day and despite dark skies, it was marvelous. The ocean looked placid, but the Monterey boats had run earlier and they reported hellish conditions. One skipper said it was the 2nd worst conditions he'd ever experienced. Everything in their galley flew. We made the right call after all.
So maybe we got a break Monday, Presidents' Day? Nope. Another scrub as conditions started okay but turned lousy by cruise time. It happens so rarely that we can't make the call until cruise time, but this was one of them. Even so, people seemed grateful rather than irritated. We'd rather not take people out and beat them up; I guess they feel the same way!
2/18/05: Why I Hate Computers
There is a long version to this story, but you don't want to hear it. Let is suffice to say Heidi has been back in computer hell the past week. So this will be a super brief update and next week's will be the longer version, filled with cool stuff.
 The
winner of the photo contest is a surprise. Well, the
photo is! This started out as a gray whale flukes contest,
but several entries were of other things. I decided
to leave it up to you and the vote came in for Ed Hughes'
sea otter as #1.
Carole Adams is a very kind and thoughtful person. She wanted to vote for the otter, but she had concerns it might send the wrong message. The otter is obviously looking our way, meaning its natural pattern was disrupted. In nature, our goal is to observe without being observed, but in and near the harbor, this is impossible, since sea otters forage and hang out right in the channel. In this case, the otter seeing us and us noting its presence are far better than what has happened the past few years. Small boats (fishing boats, most likely, since it was right when the sport salmon season opened) hit sea otters resting on the water and killed them. We all have to be aware out there; we are extra attentive when operating because of marine life.
It should be noted Ed uses very good telephoto lenses to capture his shots. We were a good distance from the animal, as evidenced by the fact it was watching us, not diving. Ed and his wife and daughter won a free whale watching cruise with Santcuary Cruises for his sea otter photograph.
Nadya Ramsaroop's gray flukes and her Risso's dolphin shot also were high scorers, with her flukes winning First Runner-Up and one free whale watching cruise.
2/3/05: Choose the Photo Contest Winners
What was I thinking? Rounding up the photo contest entrants, then cropping and loading them on the site and creating this update has taken most of the day.  Photo
#1-Nadya's Gray Flukes
Nadya Ramsaroop and her husband Maneesh discovered us recently and they had a ball. Nadya sent a couple of really good shots that showed she is quick to react and has good timing. What I liked about this was the water spilling from the flukes, the clarity. It arrived in high resolution, which allowed cropping.
They plan to join us for humpbacks and blue whales later in the year and I can't wait to see what she comes up with for photos then.
Photo #2-David Coombs' Flukes
David Coombs sent several excellent shots. Originally, we were hoping for ALL fluke shots, but as usual, life took a turn the way it wanted. We ended up with all sorts of entries, as you'll see.
This one is very nice and certainly captures the whale's flukes at a beautiful angle.
Photo #3-Nadya's Risso's Dolphin
Nadya
Ramsaroop also took this gorgeous photo of a Risso's
dolphin. You can almost count each drop of water! I
think this is a terrific shot.
Note the dark circles around the Risso's eye. I told passengers on this trip that it reminded me of the comment my mother made when I first started wearing eye makeup: "Your eyes look like pee holes in the snow!"
Photo
#4-Ed's Sea Otter
Ed Hughes is a semi-pro shooter. He has invested huge amounts of time and money into his craft and it shows. That shouldn't work against him, though, in a contest. He works hard and he gets shots the rest of us dream of.
This otter photo is excellent. Great detail capturing a classic otter expression ("Who are you and how did you get on my bay?").
Photo #5-David Coomb's Gray Whale Back
David Coombs sent this shot as well. It grabs me because it gives you a sense of the whale's large scale, yet small details, all in one.
It's important to note this whale surfaced just ahead of our bows, we didn't approach it this close. As usual, I squealed when it blew! That is one of the most exciting sounds in the world. The whale blow, I mean. Not my squeal.
Photo #6-Captain Powell
 Justin
Gaynor and Grace Murao sent this photo of their son
Powell in an email entitled. "Not a Winner, but..."
They had a great time on Princess of Whales and thanked
us and the crew for "your friendliness, enthusiasm
and professionalism. Anyway," they continued, "this
isn't exactly the sort of picture you were looking for,
but [we] still thought it was a great one!"
I think it deserves an Honorable Mention because they were plucky enough to send it. Plus, look at Powell's expression. This kid is having a great time. So Justin, Grace and Powell, you have the Honorable Mention.
Photo #7-Ed Hughes' Moody Gray Whale at Cypress
Ed Hughes took this shot on a day when the grays weren't out there in big numbers, nor were they super cooperative. Conditions were bouncy as well, making it tough to catch anything.
Several factors combine to make this so stunning: Cypress Point in the background, along with the Cypress Point buoy. The overall moodiness. In addition, we had just had dinner with producers from BBC TV. They were scouting a shoot in the spring and wanted to try to get their host at sea, near Cypress, to paddle with gray whales as we have. How perfect that we got this photograph from Ed and were able to send it along to them.
Sunday, February 20, we host a whale watching fundraiser for Seymour Discovery Center, which is part of the University of California/Santa Cruz and Long Marine Lab. Seymour docents will be aboard to tell you about the center and we'll have some extra cool things to show you. You may support Seymour Center by purchasing a slightly more expensive ticket (we will donate a portion of proceeds to Seymour) or not, as you please. If you like Seymour, it's a great way to show it!
1/20/05: Even Better Weather & Whales This Weekend!?
Last weekend was magnificent for weather and whales, but the coming weekend could beat it. We saw huge numbers of gray whales, plus a surprise species! If you can make it on Sunday, we've got an extra special offer for you.
Each day of the three day weekend was unique, but the consistent thread was lots of whales and beautiful conditions that actually improved in the afternoon.
On Saturday, we passed what appeared to be a crab trap and line in the channel heading out of the harbor. A storm probably dragged it in before the float ripped off and without it that line was a hazard. Imagine running in between the jaws at night and getting your prop fouled with it!
So we pulled it in and just as we got to the heavy pot, the guys from Sea Harvest came by. They were heading out to tend their own pots, so they winched this one in and tossed the two feisty Dungeness crabs to Steph. Our good deed resulted in a dandy dinner the next night.
On
all three days, we saw so many gray whales that we lost
count. On Saturday, I saw what I believe is the largest
pod of grays ever. They weren't moving very far south
at all and they were so tightly packed together that
they seemed to move and breathe as one, like kids at
a mall. Only these kids were very big and their blows
fanned out in feathery plumes.
The sheer numbers of grays on Sunday's cruise seemed even higher, but on Monday, we had 6-8 whales that enveloped us in their pod off Cypress Point. It was so cool. Monterey boats had headed in and we were all alone with the whales. Rather than staying down several minutes after sounding, if they dove at all, they popped right back up.
On several occasions, they came up so close that our passengers were convinced the whales were checking us out. As Daisy Wohlford exclaimed, "They like us!"
 Heading
back to Moss Landing, Mary Lynn Tenenbaum spotted a
familiar species, but wrong season. It was a small humpback,
maybe a yearling, happily diving and feeding on bait
fish!
Some of our passengers had just seen humpbacks in Hawaii, which was what prompted their trip with us to see the grays. That was a nice bonus.
Although most of the humpbacks we see spring through fall have migrated south, there's no reason why a whale can't stay here. There was plenty of bait showing on our depth sounder.
David
Coombs got all of these photos on one cruise. Aren't
they stunning? Grays don't always extend as far out
of the water. Instead, their flukes are lower and harder
to catch in a picture. But with all the whales we saw
out there, our chances increased for some extraordinary
shots such as this.
The upcoming weekend promises more of the same, with light winds and little swell predicted. We're hoping to get several new shots worthy of posting on the web site and the one judged best will win the photographer a free whale watching cruise for everyone in his or her party. They can use this credit at any time, so if you have a good camera and timing, or a little luck, come out with us!
1/14/05: A Great Weather Forecast & Lots of Whales!
The weather has finally turned in our favor, with a delightful forecast for the upcoming 3 day weekend. There's plenty of room on each of the cruises, so if you've been waiting for the combination of whales and weather, this is it! Check out How to Dress for ideas to make sure you're super comfortable out there. And don't miss A Book, a Man and a Dream for an inspirational look into the upcoming holiday. See you out there!
 With
gray whales going by in great numbers, you can definitely
expect to see a lot of whales. It was this time of the
month a few years back when the environmental writer
for the L.A. Times joined us for a cruise. He kept his
own count as we journeyed south with the whales and
he estimated he saw 40 whales that day!
How can you be sure you aren't counting the same whales over and over? Since we were going the same direction and leap-frogging ahead from one concentration to the next, we knew they were different whales. When they pause and meander, it's a lot harder to tell.
All whales have two consistent needs, feeding and breeding. This time of year, most of the grays are pretty seriouly moving south because they want to get to the lagoons, which is where a lot of mating occurs. Feeding won't resume until they head back north.
So you can expect to see a bunch of gray whales and there is always the chance you'll see killer whales. We do every January on at least a few of our cruises.
There is little difference between summer and winter attire on our cruises. You might get away with a tank top a few times in the summer, and you might get away with a tank top a few times in the winter! But generally speaking, dressing warmly and in layers is the ticket.
Start with jeans and a T-shirt. Wear cozy socks and tennies or light hiking boots. Rainboots are okay, too. Add a sweater or fleece and top it all off with a good jacket that is windproof at least. Waterproof is great, although most times, you just need protection from spray if you're at the bow. A knit hat or ear muffs and gloves are often worn by our passengers, but not always.
If you don't wear a knit hat, a ball cap is good for sun and eye protection. Sunglasses, sunscreen and lip balm are essentials for most. If I had to choose between a jacket or lip balm, I'll take lip balm. If you're the same way, try Burt's Bees Beeswax Lip Balm. I love it!
Speaking of bees and having nothing at all to do with whales, Steph gave me a book for Christmas. It was a New York Times bestseller. I have a rather jaded opinion on what contitutes a best seller, having trudged through too many truly awful books that were. But this book was so enchanting, even if it had been loaned to me, I'd have bought a copy for myself. It's called The Secret Life of Bees. Read it. Steph did and he shared my enthusiasm for it. This is great writing.
Martin Luther King Day has special meaning this year, thanks to the book. If you read it, let me know what you think of it. On Monday, take a moment to reflect on a true hero and what he did in his short lifetime. He dared to dream of all people united and equal. He took the terrifying risks, fighting for his dream. And he paid the ultimate price. We are a better people because of Martin Luther King. Celebrate his life.
Laura Ferris was Fluke's veterinary assistant during a health crisis a few years ago and she was just great with Fluke. Laura is now a veterinary student at Oregon State and she keeps track of us through these newsletters.
Laura wrote to say that there's a good deal of evidence that a raw diet isn't as safe as is claimed by some vets. Specifically, chicken bones don't splinter as much when raw, but they can still injure and even kill. So we've decided to go back to a lightly cooked natural diet for Biscuit along with Nutro puppy kibble, which is formulated for puppies. Nutro's great stuff and by mixing the two, Laura agrees she'll get the best of both worlds, because if a dog has to change its diet due to a special need, it will already be comfortable with different textures.
Biscuit is mad at us over the missing chicken parts, but we'd like to have her healthy for the long haul. Thought I'd pass this onto you in case you were thinking of making a change.
1/9/05: The Gray Whale Parade's Sloshy Start
This is the big month for gray whales, with February a close second. Much-needed rain has been a big factor, but forecasts for next week look good! Here's a little background on these barnacle-encrusted giants, plus an update on our new crew member, Biscuit.
 Most
people who know a few things about gray whales will
cite their complete fast from the time they leave the
Bering Sea until they return on what is believed to
be the longest migration by any mammal on earth.
But for years, some grays have dropped out of the migration and taken up residence in areas all along the migratory path. This is called "site fidelity" and while they might range hundreds of miles during this time, they can also stay within a very small geographic area. No living thing can fast forever, so how have they done this?
Carrie Newell is a 43 year old single mother, a community college instructor and an Oregon State University graduate student. She discovered the resident grays around Newport, Oregon are feeding on mycid shrimp, tiny creatures about the size of a grain of rice. They're found in dense masses somewhat like krill, which is also a food for gray whales, but not very often. Their main food consists of amphipods found in the sea bottom in the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
So are the grays just showing their ability to evolve by exploiting other food sources or are they desperate enough that they have to find new foods to survive? It's a good question. Carrie notes she has seen some skinny whales and is exploring the possibility that some whales are saving energy by not making the full migration, while feeding on new species.
I sent her photos of the very thin and heavily barnacle-covered young gray whale that we saw last summer and she confirmed she has seen similar sights off the Oregon coast. But the majority of the gray whales--both the ones that make the full migration and those that don't--appear robust. The ones boiling past our shores now are taking part in a spectacular dance of nature, one that is thrilling to be part of.
 Mary Brooks was right. What were we thinking, getting a puppy? Biscuit is everything from a total nut case (running around, tearing up anything she can find, terrorizing the cats) to the sweet little demure thing we thought we were getting at the SPCA. Her best behavior is when she's asleep.
The good news is that she loves her kennel. When it's in the house and she's tired of us, she'll put herself to bed in it. If we need to do something that requires all of our attention, meaning we can't supervise her, we put her in there with a few toys, snacks and a substantial rawhide bone and she entertains herself. I call the kennel "Time Out." So does Biscuit; time out from us, I guess.
We wanted to give her the best start and since several vets have suggested a more natural, mostly raw diet, that's what she eats. As the vet says, commercial dog food was created as a convenience for humans, not as a better food for the animal.
Puppies especially need to chew and some of her favorite foods are beef bones and chicken parts, with bones! How many times have you heard, "Never give a dog chicken bones, because they splinter"? They do, but only when cooked. Raw chicken bones are great for dogs. Among other things, they supply the glucosamine and chondroitin needed for healthy joints.
Biscuit has only shipped out on a couple of cruises so far, because if I haven't run, she's stayed with me. But she will get her sea time this January and yes, there's a good chance you'll be able to meet her on cruises. Bring your leather gloves.
|
