As ever, Ben was looking for even more wildlife after our butterfly excursion so we bolted down toward Monterey hoping to catch a whale watching boat. We arrived to the insane parking lot at 1:00 and I began madly calling boat operators to find us a spot on a boat. With a little luck, we found one departing at 1:30, and jogged over to the pier to board.

I was terrified of seasickness (I always get so sick on ocean boats), but my empty stomach and a bit of medicine did the trick.As we rolled out of the harbor, our way was lined with sea lions nearly everywhere, including this sad image Ben caught of an animal sitting on a fishing boat who seemed to have had a bad run in with a fishing net.

The boat pitched, rolled, and satisfactorily drenched us for almost an hour before we arrived in the middle of a feeding group of probably 50 whales. The whales surfaced and dived over and over again, bringing with them a huge group of feeding sea lions and seagulls. It was quite a spectacle.

Ben was in complete wildlife heaven as we watched the huge creatures swarming around our boat.

The hour of wildlife watching flew by and soon we were heading back toward port. I could barely keep my eyes open and finally gave in. I slept on the bench the entire way back.

By the time we arrived back on land we were wet and freezing, and at least a touch seasick, so we meandered the touristy pier and then devoured clam chowder and fish and chips with the last of the daylight.

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