Whales in Pacifica!

Very rarely have I found exercise as rewarding as I did tonight. No, I haven't lost inches or pounds. Instead, I was completely entertained and distracted during my workout (yippeee!). As I was stretching at the foot of the Pacifica pier, I was staring out at the ocean noticing the volume of water at high tide, the choppy waves and the seemingly-oversized sun. Then, I saw a large puff of water really close to shore. I thought I was seeing things and just chalked it up to seaspray and my poor vision. But then it happened again and suddenly I got a peek of the back of a whale.

I ended up running along the beach and climbing up Mori Point for a better view as the whales traveled south. As I walked back North to the pier, the whales must've made a U-turn because all of a sudden there they were again, this time treating their audience to fins raised up in the air, breaches, and tail slaps. My 30 minute run turned into a 1.5 hour whale-watching excursion. The entire time I kept thinking to myself (and even said to several people I ended up talking to along the pier): Jason is NEVER going to believe me. In three years living in Pacifica we've seen dolphin once or twice and that's about it. We have the worst luck! And the one night I go running without him, this happens. His reaction to my story? "I don't believe you! You are totally making this up!"

Amidst all my excitement I couldn't help but think about the stories I've been reading lately about all the plastic floating around in our Oceans and how it ends up in the stomachs of sea life (and eventually back into our food supply). I found reading this paper very helpful in understanding what is going on and why it's such an issue. Hope you find it interesting, too.

Now, back to my Flickr search for whales at the Pacifica pier since of course I didn't have a camera with me for my Monday night run!