One of the first things that came to mind when Greg first asked if I wanted to go to Santa Barabara this week was, "Whales!" The Santa Barbara Channel is prime for grey whale migration in the late winter and spring, but a little further out there are humpback and blue whales pretty much all summer. I should mention here that I'm rather fascinated by ocean life, particularly whales. They are amazing creatures and I love watching ocean documentaries about them. I know the most random facts about whales. Many of the most popular types of whales, such as humpbacks and blue whales, don't have teeth (baleen varieties) and feed on krill or tiny fish by filtering them from mouthfuls of water. The toothed variety, such as belugas, will feed on larger fish. The animal known as the killer whale, or orca, and whale sharks aren't really whales at all. Orcas are actually part of the dolphin family (they sometimes feed on large whales) and the whale sharks are, well, sharks, but they feed on krill like baleen whales. Ok, I'll stop with the whale trivia now.
The closest I've ever come to seeing a real one was watching the beluga whales and whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium. My brother went whale watching off the East coast a couple of years ago and thought it was awesome. I was totally pumped about the chance to go visit the whales while in Santa Barbara.
Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. In the spring it's easier, with the grey whales migrating up the channel you can take one of a dozen 2.5 hour charter for about $30. This time of year the humpback and blue whales are on display, but much further out. I've only found one charter that runs trips in the summer, and they are all at least half a day, for $95 per person. Yikes. We're only going to be there 3 days at most, and Greg will be spending one and a half of those days with the robot people (I wasn't making that up, that's the whole purpose of the trip). Half a day to maybe see a whale is quite the time commitment. They do offer a guarantee, but since we're only going to be there a few days we wouldn't have time to use a raincheck. If we had a week, I'd probably be more inclined to fork over two hundred bucks. Or maybe not. That's an awful lot of money for a sightseeing tour.
Perhaps one day we can go back to California or maybe the East Coast during the prime whale season and take a shorter, less expensive trip to visit the whales. This time around I think I'll stick to visiting the Sea Center.
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2 comments:
That stinks ... but at least you're getting to go to California. :)
... and with all this money y'all are going to be saving, you can spring for a trip to Sea World down the road. ;)
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