Sunday, June 7, 2015

Whale!

The whale turning left after passing offshore of us. The end of the Avila Pier on on the left.

 Camera photo from one of the people on the pier. That is Leslie, Amy 2 and I closest to the whale and Dave, Casey, John and Tom  

 Having passed between us and the pier now heading back to the west. If you can enlarge the photo you can see the blowhole.

That is not my thumb on the right of the photos. There was Salp in the water (they look like small sea jellies) and one appears to have gotten stuck to the lense of my camera.   

More Photos; Tom and Leslie contacted some of the people who had been on the end of the pier and several agreed to share their photos.  I'll post them here when I receive them. 

These were taken by a person on the pier.

This is before Dave knows the whale is behind him, but he had heard us yelling
and thinks the worst is about to happen.

Amy and Leslie up close.

From L to R; Niel, Amy, Leslie, Dave, Casey and John. Tom is just out of the picture. 

The Story;

Sylvia and Pete were swimming the buoy line while Niel, Leslie, Tom, Dave Van Mouwerik, Amy 2, John Hampsey and Casey (who just moved here from the Bay Area) intended to swim to the end of the Avila Pier, over to the Poly Pier and back. When I joined up with the group at the end of the pier Leslie was yelling WHALE and pointing out to sea. I looked around and saw Dave 50' from me swimming west with a humpback whale another 10' farther out from him swimming east. Dave herd Leslie yelling, assumed the worst, and swam towards us with his body about 2' above the water.  Sorry Dave. He was scared and pissed off initially but once he knew that he was not about to be eaten and calmed down he was able to enjoy what we were seeing. Our group was about 50' off of the end of the pier with the whale initially swimming east, towards Pismo offshore from us. It turned 180 degrees left and swam back west between us and the pier!   We shared our excitement for a bit and then started to swim towards the Poly Pier.  I went three strokes when I heard Leslie yell again. I popped up my head up and saw the whale swimming towards me crossing 20' to my left.  At this point we decided to bail on swimming across the open water between the two piers, swam to the last buoy at the creek and on in to our starting point. Amy 2, Dave and Tom did another 1/2 mile down the buoy line and back. The whale continued to cruise back and forth parallel the beach for another hour.

Casey has been swimming in the Aquatic Park and is looking for a local tri team to hook up with.  I think we made her feel welcome and she had a good time.  :-)

The water temp was 56. It was sunny and felt much warmer than last week.

niel