One more photo of a sweet gray in Baja. I think she is smiling…….
Like the good travelers we are, we made the most of our return plane ticket to LAX. In Los Angeles, we rented a car and headed to Ventura, home of the Channel Islands National Park. Local friends joined us for bits of our visit — dinner, whale watching, but we missed seeing other longtime friends.
A diving humpback. Whales just don’t stay still for photos
The Channel Islands National Park is a cluster of islands off the Ventura, California coast, an area referred to as the Galápagos of North America. This trip we concentrated on whale watching, but on our next trip we’ll hike the islands, look for wildlife and perhaps snorkel. While we expected to see whales, the abundance of marine life surprised us.
Because this large bay teems with food, a pod of humpback whales has made the bay their year around home. To our delight, we saw whale after whale breaching and spouting and hanging around. Either we lucked out in selecting March for our visit or the female captain of our whale watching ship was a marine life whisperer. As we cruised toward the islands, the captain spotted dolphins, possibly 3,000 dolphins by her estimate, spanning a half mile. These beautiful mammals were feeding and playfully swimming around the ship.
Our playful dolphin friends
We completed our coastal trip with a few days in Cambria, a Central California town. There we visited the Piedras Blancas Light Station and indulged in wine drinking in beautiful Paso Robles.
Signing off for now as we prepare for another whale watching trip in the Atlantic. Hoping to spot a few sperm whales and perhaps a blue.
RetireTravelCeliacGo 