Last weekend, I went on a whale-watching trip with my colleagues to Moss Landing. Moss Landing isn’t as well known as Monterey Bay, but it wasn’t as long a drive from our hotel in downtown San Jose, so Moss Landing it was.
We woke up bright and early to a most unpromising-looking morning. Drizzly, cold, and foggy, we quickly realized we would be lucky to see anything in the ocean. Still, we had already paid for the tickets and were high on jet-lag-fueled energy, so there was no looking back.
Reaching there, we realized quite a few of us were woefully unprepared for the weather. Got the most ugly gloves (so bad, I left them in my hotel room at checkout). Thankfully, I was in my trusty Uniqlo down jacket and thermals, so I didn’t need to get anything else.
Getting into the boat, I was a bit surprised at the lack of life jackets (mandatory only for kids) and seating space for what would be quite a bumpy couple of hours in the ocean.
Still, we onboarded quite bravely and stayed outside the cabin (I knew I would get seasick if I stayed indoors) for the entirety of the trip.
The experience
It was the most exhilarating experience I have had at sea ever! The wind was bracing, and since I was nicely warm in my jacket and gloves, I could enjoy the wind against my skin. I finally got a taste of what Leo and Kate must have felt standing at the front of the boat in Titanic.
The tour itself was amazing. Just getting out of the docks, we saw several sea lions and otters, and within 10 minutes of hitting the ocean, we saw our first whale. We were told there were recent sightings of grey and killer whales, but we only saw several humpback whales – some of them huge creatures.
The goal of whale watching is to see/capture a whale breaching – something like this.
Unfortunately, while we did see a whale breaching, it was on the other side of the boat, and by the time I made it there, it had gone under and never breached again.
The next best thing to a breach is seeing a whale fluke its tail, which we saw several times.
The original pic was much more gray, and the whale was further away. I had to do some color grading to make the water look blue so that the tail looked more distinct. We also got some videos, but most were very jumpy, with the whale unclear.
Here’s one of the better-looking videos.
After a couple of hours, we gave up on seeing another whale breaching and headed back to shore. We have no complaints, though. We saw a number of whales, and overall, it was a very uplifting experience and a highlight of our trip.
We warmed up at a nice restaurant in downtown Santa Cruz, eating way too much at Mozaic, burning it off with a wander and shopping at Paper Vision, where I was tempted to spend too much but nicely restrained myself (that store is a haven for stationery nerds, arty folks, and pop culture buffs).
Santa Cruz is a lovely place to stroll around. It has a hippy-dippy seventies vibe, a nice contrast to San Jose.
Then back to our hotel room and relaxation and preparation for a week full of meetings!
