I'm a whale watcher...

This was an exciting week in this neck of the woods, a whale swam into the harbor. On Wednesday morning Phill called me at 7am, he said, "Get your paddle board and head to the harbor right now!" I was not even out of bed yet, although Ruby had been awake for an hour. I have no idea what she was doing during that time, except she came up with 4 dresses on. There was no way I was taking Ruby on a paddle board with me to see a whale, she is wild on that thing. So I grabbed my friend Erica and the three of us headed to the Scoop Deck for our favorite, Harbor Special Bagel (cream cheese, tomato, red onion, lemon pepper and avocado on an everything). We had no idea where the whale would be, but got news from the bagel girl that the whale was beaching itself at Baby Beach (this is where our church meets, we paddle and spend a lot of time). The girl suggested not taking Ruby since it was probably going to die. Yea right, we raced over as fast as we could. Upon arrival there was every news truck, three helicopters, and maybe 50 people on the beach. My goal was an interview. Which did result in a stranger almost baby sitting Ruby. I think she was rather annoyed with me. Especially, when she told me that I need to wipe Ruby's nose and "Ummm, your kid is in the water."

The whale was laying about 30-50 feet from the shore and coming up for air every few minutes. It was amazing to see. Slowly our group arrived and we set up camp, while the rest of the world showed up too. There were hundreds of people there by 10am. We laughed to think all of us could just drop everything and watch a whale do nothing. And yet, we stayed and watched, Lilly, for about 3 hours. But we got to see Sea World come cut the rope that was stuck on her. We also some some dork walk up and almost paddle board on top of her. Side note: yesterday I saw this moron out paddling and I yelled, "hey, your the guy who almost ran over the whale. Ha! You're famous now buddy." He thought it was no big deal since he had paddled by her before.

Later the news said she had left the harbor and headed north.

The next day I went out for a paddle around the harbor by myself. As I rounded the corner of the far side of the island, I saw all the news crews and cameras were rolling. Yep, it is one thing to stand on the shore and see a whale it is another to stand on a board (that is slippery because your husband used mayonnaise to clean the tar off the top) in the cold ocean and begin to think a 30 foot whale may pop up next to you at anytime. My legs were shaking to the point of almost falling down. But I was right in front of the news camera, so I just sucked in and hope someone saw me. Later I learned she was on the other side of the jetty, where she died the next day. Which was super sad. Yet, in Ruby’s mind—Lilly was freed by Sea World on Wednesday. If you can click on the picture of me and Erica, Ruby is taking the picture you can see her in the sunglasses, I think she took the one of herself too.