A Whale of a Birthday

Yes, it's true, I'm another year older. Keith and I both had to work late on my actual birthday, so besides just stopping by Applebee's after work, we decided to celebrate over the weekend by going Whale Watching! It was absolutely amazing!
Last Saturday morning, we drove up to Anacortes to catch the ferry to the Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. Just the ferry ride alone among the islands was beautiful. It looked like the Caribbean except that the islands had pine trees. When we arrived at Friday Harbor, I felt like I was in Maine. It was chilly, you could smell the water, people were grilling clams and mussels and oysters right on the street. We stopped and had crab cakes in an open-air restaurant. Then, we headed to our boat to go whale watching.
Our boat headed out on this beautiful sunny day. Our crew was so knowledgeable and nice. We learned we were looking for whales in the Salish Sea, which as I understand it is where Puget Sound meets the Strait of Georgia meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca. After watching a seal (or sea lion...I always forget the difference) eat a salmon, and looking at some fallow deer on the shore of one of the islands, we came upon the whales.
We spent an hour watching the whales, which were all around our boat. They were jumping and swimming and coming quite close to where we were. With a microphone under the boat, we could hear them communicating, and it was a beautiful glorious sound. The whole experience left me in wonderment of God's creation. Whatever I describe here will not do the experience justice, so I won't even try. I will say this, if you find yourself in this area, do it! Western Prince Cruises was very nice and knowledgeable and gave us a great experience that we are looking forward to doing again in the future. For all the pictures, you can click on the my photos link on the right side of this blog and then click on the whale watching set.
When we came back, we had some of those clams and mussels and oysters that we were eyeing earlier (which were delicious!) and then boarded the ferry to get back to our car.
It was a wonderful birthday gift and a great day with Keith! Thank you honey!