whale sighting!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 5:22 PM | Bitty ;)
snapped on our way into Oceanside yesterdayHello from the stormy and extremely wet Oregon Coast! It's been raining no-stop, with intermittent bouts of wind, since we arrived. It is fabulous.
We braved the rain and slight (though not terrible) chill for a bit of a walk this afternoon. Down to the public lot/overlook just below our cabins and just above the beach, and up and down the length of downtown Oceanside proper (all two blocks of it). The tide is too high to go down on the beach itself, but the lot/overlook provides a terrific viewing point for enjoying the beach in lieu of doing so from the sand.
Since it's about 30 feet above the water, you get a little further view out past the three arches than you do from the sand. And despite the leaden skies and rain, visibility was good enough to spot a whale about a mile or two out from the beach, just past the southernmost of the arches, moving northward. (I know they're currently migrating south, but this one was definitely moving north. Perhaps one of the 400 gray whales that are said to live off the PNW Coast instead of moving between Alaska and Baja?) We of course didn't have our camera, so we just stood and watched with great glee and awe. Our first full day here and already this vacation is a win!
This is actually the second time we've had a whale spotting. The first was during a visit to Cape Meares about four or five years ago -- we saw two small pods migrating north about two miles off the point (three miles off the shore proper). (I still need to catch up on posting old pics from trips like that one, so I'll have to look to see if we had a camera with us then....) Since Cape Meares is such a high vantage, you have a good view all up and down the coastline, so we were able to watch that pod for more than half an hour before they passed beyond our view. And since it was a spring migration, they had several calves in tow, which made it all the more amazing and inspirational.
Anyway, Whale Watching Week continues through the 1st, so if you have a chance to get to one of the designated watch spots, I highly recommend it!
pacific northwest paradise in good life, vacation
Reader Comments (2)
T would be so jealous about the whale sightings! We've tried twice and haven't seen any, so he's beginning to wonder about his luck.
Aww, poor guy! I will say that winter and early spring seem to be the best times to see them. Perhaps you can plan a visit during one of those times....