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Our destination today is Gloucester, MA 58 miles away - the adventure is aboard the Hurricane II - the mission is to find whales. We are really excited about it and cannot wait for the experience. There is nothing like experiencing anything through your own eyes and these sea monsters do not fit in an aquarium.
We left the campground early enough because we had a side mission. Javier wanted to have lunch at Chick fil A. When we are on road trips, the boys ask to stop at different food places that are not available at home, either to try something they never had, or to go back to one they tried and liked. Chick fil A is one on their list they like to go back to. Lucky for me (or maybe not) the location was in a Mall. So I would be able to have lunch somewhere else since I do not eat meat. At the end - Kati and I were not really hungry for lunch and we treated ourselves to a delicious pastry from a bakery.
As we left the dock we were told we would have to ride out about an hour and a half before we would see them. Most of the time they could be found within 45 minutes, but for some reason they were further out this time. I am not sure how many miles out into the ocean that was. People said you never really see any and after over an hour out on the boat, Gil was beginning to lose hope. The tour company we went with warrantees you will see them or you can go back as often as you need to for free until you see them. Knowing that I booked the trip for Tuesday. It gave us two more days to return if we wanted to before we left the area, but I was really hoping to see them today.
Shortly after our discussion, the boat slowed down and they announced they had spotted a couple of blows. This is when the whales exhale air through their blowholes explosively.
We not only saw one but we ended up seeing about 7 whales ourselves and it was announced during our tour 11 whales had been spotted. After spotting them, the captain would get closer to the whale and follow them as long as they were visible. After staying on the surface for a bit, they dive deep to get food and it takes a handful of minutes before they surface again. There were two whales that were swimming together and we were able to follow them for a long time. This is not usual since whales do not really travel in pods. We mainly saw their back and fin as they swam, and often sticking out their tail for a tail slap. We did not see any of them breach, they say they only see that in about 10% of the trips.
The trip took 4 hours and we then drove back to the mall for some dinner and shopping since good sales were also spotted.
The trip today was a success and I would recommend Cape Ann Whale Watching tours. I had selected them a while ago and even found a Groupon for the trip the day I was ready to book it. Why pay more when you can Groupon?
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