We saw a lot more ocean on Wednesday when we went whale watching in Monterey. This was amazing. We took a boat about an hour beyond Monterey and ended up surrounded by at least fifty humpback whales feeding on anchovies by diving up and down. Normally it would be exciting to see dolphins and sea-lions, but when you've seen whales the dolphins you pass on the way back to shore seem a bit passé. We then drove home via a section of the famous coastal highway, taking in more Pacific scenery before turning back in land and returning to Palo Alto via the hills that separate the coast from the San Francisco peninsula.
So what have I learnt?
(1) It is much harder to be entertaining in a blog when you are having loads of fun: nobody wants to read about how great my holiday is!
(2) When whales exhale through their blow holes they spray out fine water droplets which can refract sunlight and make little rainbows over the whale's head. I knew that the Italians call a whale a "balena" and a rainbow a "baleno", but I had never made the connection before.
(3) You can't photograph whales with a normal camera, you need an enormous device that screams "Freudian over-compensation". I felt very rebellious by not even trying to compete, I just watched the whales and tried to ignore the fact that everybody else on the boat was apparently a paparazzo or somebody who prefers to see the world through a lens.
(4) Whale breath has a distinctive smell, a sort of cross between fish and the tanning chemicals that pollute the Arno (if that means anything to you!)
(5) Monterey (along with the rest of California) used to be part of Mexico, so perhaps Sinatra wasn't wrong when he sang about Monterey in old Mexico.
(6) There is a Californian town called "Seaside", which I believe is actually by the seaside. That's what I love about Americans - they say things exactly how they see them.
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