WHALE OF A TALE!
We finally made it out into blue water on Sunday 1/19/03. We left Chula Vista Marina in San Diego South Bay at about 1100 and motored out the channel into the anchorage area. We got stopped twice by the Coast Gaurd just north of the Seetwater Channel. Those guys are the best of the best. They just wanted to remind us of the saftey zone that has been established around all U.S. naval vessels, and wanted to know if we knew any of the latest football scores, we didn't know and they sent us on our way. Just as we cleared the bay bridge the wind finally showed up and we sailed the rest of the way out past Point Loma. We went off shore about 5 or 6 miles and then the wind stopped and everything went quiet and calm. There were charter whale watch boats all around us. We listened to the radio and we were relaxing and watching, and watching, and watching. Nada! Nothing! Zilch! We didn't see anything except other boats doing the same thing we were.
I talked to several people who went out on Saturday 12/18/03 and they all said they either saw lots of whales or lots of dolphins and sometimes both.
A front started moving in about 1530 so we started back in. On the way back we remembered that 7 different large Navy ships had left yesterday fully loaded and headed for the Persian Gulf and we decided that all the ship activity probably drove the whales out past the Coronados.
We did get a fairly decent picture of a Sub. I think its a 600 class, but I'm not too sure, anyway it passed us a couple of times so I'm sure it was moving around under the area quiet a bit and probably scared off most of the marine mammals in the area.
As we cleared Ballast Point it started to get dark (what a beautiful sunset) and as we made the corner of the Bay around the North end of Coronado Naval Station we realized that the city has been all decked out for the Super Bowl and the entire waterfront on the east side of the bay is beautiful with carnavals and Megatron big screens that can be seen from the water. It looks like Disneyland at night. If your into night sailing and your in the San Diego area you really should check it out its really cool!
It was a beautiful day and we had a great and relaxing time.
Jim of Doldrums