Yesterday, our neighborhood association arranged for some of us residents to go whale watching on a boat (the Betty-O) that leaves from Marina del Rey, just a few minutes away from our place.  Our concierge had some extra tickets, so Jamie and I decided to go, in spite of my reluctance to get up at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday.  We grabbed some Starbucks, parked in the paid lot right next to the boat, and then waited at least 45 minutes for others to assemble.  In other words, we could have slept 45 more minutes.  Anyhoo, as we waited we watched many different kind of birds scouring for little fish.  We saw a couple of seals frolicking in the harbor.  We watched as crew teams from area colleges went back and forth.  Eventually, our concierge showed up with her nephew (Alex) and his girlfriend (Emma).  Pretty much everyone took some sort of ginger supplement to aid in the fight against sea-sickness, after Mike, our captain, explained that the water was pretty choppy out there.  Finally, some time around 10:00 a.m., we set off.  As soon as we came around the large rock barrier at the end of the harbor, we could see that indeed, the sea was angry that day my friend!  Like an old man sending back soup at the deli!

We headed straight into the swells.  I'm not much of a nautical man, but surely the swells were at least 10 feet high.  Is that high?  I was a little bit worried that I might get sea-sick, but there was a nice cool breeze, the motion wasn't really bothering me, and I had taken that ginger supplement.  So, for the first few minutes, things were great.  I was talking with Sophia and Jamie about Kurt Russell, when I saw Emma run to the trash can behind them and throw up.  Egg salad sandwich.  At first I felt bad for her, and I tried not to draw attention to it.  I put it out of my mind.  Then, Jamie went to throw out her gum in that trash can, and she noticed what else was in there.  Now, it was the topic of discussion.  Emma threw up again, and moved to the rail of the boat.  I couldn't get it out of my head.  So, I trained my gaze on the horizon, and focused on not getting sick.  It wasn't long before another woman started throwing up over the side, directly in my line of sight.  I turned away.  Then, the girl sitting right next to me, turned around where she sat and threw up over the back of the boat.  I was cornered.  The awkward guy sitting across from me, got up and kind of squat ran towards the galley.  He was awkward, and had been doing that squat run any time he had moved on the boat, so I wasn't sure that there was anything wrong.  But then I heard an announcement over the loud speaker that they needed some help in the galley.  I could only get glimpses into the galley from where I was sitting, but I looked just in time to see the awkward guy throwing up all over himself and the floor of the galley.  He didn't even attempt to get to a trash can or to the side of the boat.  But still, I remained steadfast, affixing my eyes beyond the swells.

Jamie realized that I hadn't yet put on sunscreen, a bad idea for someone with such delicate skin.  She got it out and handed it to me, but I explained that as much as I wanted to protect my porcelain finish, I couldn't risk opening that bottle and catching a whiff of the lotion.  It might be enough to send me over.  So, I sat there unprotected with fellow patrons dropping one by one.  The children had started to lay their heads in their parents' laps.  So, Jamie and a few others who were unaffected had a group discussion with our leader about turning the boat around.  Some protested, saying we were only 20 minutes away from our destination.   But, that meant 40 minutes round-trip, and they hadn't even seen whales for 2 weeks, so the decision was made to head for home.  As soon as we turned around, things started to calm down.  Riding with the swells provided a much smoother ride.  The psychological factor of just knowing that we were on our way to land brought hope to the eyes around me.

We made it back safely without further incident.  Once in the calm of the harbor, our Captain pointed out some large birds nesting in some trees and explained a little bit about their habitat.  The boat docked and we watched the awkward guy exit the boat awkwardly.  His legs seemed stuck between land legs and sea legs.  We got off the boat and headed to the parking lot with our voucher for free parking.  Unfortunately, there was a really long line to get out of the parking lot.  This was strange, because it's a pretty small parking lot, and it wasn't even close to full.  Apparently, we were all trying to leave at the same time as the crew teams we had seen competing earlier.  There was something holding everybody up, so we eventually waited an hour just to leave the parking lot.  The perfect end to a perfect day.  Fortunately, we were able to go straight to In-N-Out to make everything better.  And of course, hours later, I turned bright red.

We took some pics that I'll post on flickr.