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At 8:00 a.m., early in the winter month of March, we jumped into the protected waters of Lydgate State Park, and it actually wasn't even cold. What a great place.
After taking our mandatory peek at the fish, we dashed back to the hotel to clean up and attend "Parrot Talk" again. Carolyn was again fun and informative. It was actually a smaller crowd (strange since it was Saturday), so we had more a more personal discussion. Here's Cathy holding the fourth bird, the only one missing from yesterday's collection of photos.
At 3:00, we met up with Na Pali Adventures for a second go at the whale watching thing. Captain Tim was again at the helm, and kept us entertained while the last pair of folks wasted a half hour of everyone's time following the incorrect directions of the Na Pali office. (We were none too impressed with the folks in the office, one woman combined being rude with giving us confusing and wrong driving instructions. Fortunately, Cathy figured out how to really get there, or we would have been a half hour late for the first attempt.) There's a Navy presence at the same marina we were leaving from, and Captain Tim explained that they maintained small ships that are used as target drones for the Pacific Missile Range Facility. From the looks of the drone we watched get towed back into the marina, the targeting equipment was working very well.
Finally, all of the tourists were loaded on the boat, and we were off. The plan was to follow the same procedure as the day before: blast east along the coast, drenching everyone in the boat, head a little further out to sea, then slowly work back down the coast looking for whales. As were we just getting away from the marina, the couple behind us saw two whales breach (that's whale-watching lingo for jumping completely out of the water). By the time they hollered and we looked, there was just a big splash visible. We headed in that general direction, and eventually ended up trolling down the coast with a group of at least three humpback whales. We didn't see them breach again, but we did see them come up for air, spray water from their blowholes, and occasionally flip their flukes as they dove into the water. Several times, they approached very close to the boat and we could clearly see three whales at the same time.
With this QuickTime movie, you can experience the whale-watching-photo-taking experience much as we did (minus the intensity of actually being there, the sway of the boat and the spray of the water).
Overall, we were really pleased with Na Pali Adventures. We got the second trip free even though we did technically see a whale, if just barely. Captain Tim walked the line between fun and professional and told us a lot about the whales and the island. His jokes were pretty good, although he has only slightly more than one trip's worth of material. Today's First Mate, Mike, was also fun and knowledgeable and kept us entertained when Tim was busy.
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