Morning dawned grey in Monterey, which did not bode well for our
upcoming 3-hour boat expedition to go whale watching in the bay. We wrapped up
warm and went back out onto the wharf. The now-familiar sound of barking sea
lions (although it’s less like barking and more like guttural yelling) sounded
from beyond the marina. The noise had a tinny echo, which made me think it was
coming from inside the metal-sided warehouses on the opposite pier. It was only
when we set off out of the harbour that we saw that the sea lions were actually
underneath the pier, bobbing in the water and even draped across the
wooden crossbeams that hold the stilts together. Not a sea lion rave, then.
The boat cleaved out towards Monterey Bay, its engine sounding like a
saw sliding back and forth through a log, and our skipper’s voice crackled out
of the speakers in the rear of the vessel, informing us that we were heading
out in search of a pod of humpback whales. We clutched our binoculars and
looked out over the Pacific. Behind us, seagulls soared in convoy with the
boat. A dark cloud had settled over the coastline, but it was no less beautiful
for it; in fact, the darkness created a high contrast between the distant
layers of cliffs and mountains, like a watercolour painting. Then the dolphins
came. Risso’s dolphins, apparently the largest species but for orcas. One
moment the sea was a broad expanse of unbroken blue; the next, we were
surrounded on all sides by dorsal fines arching up and down out of the water.
My go-to idea of a dolphin is a bottlenose, so I was surprised to see that
these guys have goofy rounded faces and big black eyes like portholes. It was
as if a fleet of submarines had come to life and started doing backflips. We
followed the dolphins through what seemed like an endless field of glass chunks
floating on the surface. A closer look revealed them to be jellyfish, though
not of a kind I’d ever seen before. They were roughly pebble-sized, with
transparent, bubble-like bodies and midnight-blue undersides. There must have
been hundreds of thousands of them, floating on their own or welded together
with others, forming a kind of bubble-wrap layer over the water. I assume the
dolphins have developed an immunity to their sting, as they were bouncing
pretty happily through the swarm. As the boat passed, it parted the water into
rolling curls which flipped the jellyfish onto their backs en masse. I have no
idea how they right themselves when this happens. Maybe they just accept their
new existence, legs in the air, head underwater, topsy-turvy.
Once we left the dolphins behind, we caught our first glimpse of a
whale. If you don’t see the great dark mound of its back or the wing-like shape
of its tail, chances are you’ll spot them by the geyser of misty water they
blast out of their blowholes. This second half of the tour was spent chugging
carefully after these whales, watching them dive and then waiting minutes until
they surfaced again, hoping we weren’t scaring them off, hoping even more that
they would perform those incredible skyward leaps you see in photographs. We
heard a great splash behind us, but by the time we turned around all we could
see was foaming water and a whale sinking slowly out of sight. I thought that
would be it, but our skipper persisted and we did end up seeing them leap,
although I doubt anyone was quick enough to snap a good picture. One humpback
calf could be seen twirling in the water, splashing its giant fins about, as if
waving to us. It might be a cliché to say it, but it really is humbling to be
in the presence of creatures like this. Beasts of enormous size, slow and
serene, so alien in shape yet clearly possessing a strange, unfathomable kind
of consciousness, playing and singing as we do. The journey back to Monterey
was spent in awed silence.
Once we got back to the pier, we ate fried calamari and fries while my
dad devoured a clam chowder bread bowl, which is basically a hollowed out bread
roll full of white stew. I’ve never been a fan of food that’s more liquid than
solid, so this didn’t entice me personally, but I was happy for my dad, who
seemed utterly thrilled. The big lunch was more than necessary, as it was then
time to retrieve our bags and car from the hotel and begin the four-hour
journey to Bakersfield, where we are stopping over on the way to Death Valley.
The journey was unmemorable, as it was too dark to see much landscape, although
we did stop at a roadside Carl’s Jr. for dinner. I think it is one of, if not the,
quintessential American experience to eat greasy filth in a deserted, rundown
fast food joint. We, nervous Brits as we are, ended up fleeing back to the car
when Dad became suspicious of the heavily-tatted men lurking near the
bathrooms. That’s what happens when you watch as much American gangster TV as
my father does.
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