Today was probably the day we were most looking forward to in San Francisco. Up early, we had to be at the pier by 7.30am to set off at 8am. We were off to the Farallon Islands in the Pacific to go looking for whales!

It was cloudy when we set off, but reasonably warm. That changed as we got further out to sea. The cloud stayed with us and it got colder. But the sea was calm and the journey lovely.

We didn’t get to go over the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday, but we sailed under it today 😀 (um…… you guys know its red rather than golden – right?) On the way out to the islands we spotted several pods of porpoises, a few sea lions and lots of sea birds. Once we reached the islands about 90 minutes later we were told to be on whale watch, we were heading in to deeper waters. It took a while, about 30 people all peering about looking for the telltale water spout or fin, but somebody eventually spotted one. We had found a female humpback whale and her year old calf.

It was quite amazing. We couldn’t get really close, unless they approached us (which they didn’t) so we only ever came as close as approximately 150 yards. But watching them dive, their tails going up in the air, was great. After 30 minutes we had only spotted them surface a few times and then we had to leave them, that being the maximum time we could spend staying close to any whale we found so as not to upset them.

While we were watching the whales, some sea lions popped their heads out of the water and watched us for a few minutes. Very amusing 🙂

We headed back to the Farallon Islands and slowed so we could see all the various sea birds nesting there, maybe catch sight of a shark (unfortunately not) before heading back to the mainland. As we headed back the sun came out and the trip back was beautiful 😀

So that was our last day. We’ve eaten, come back to the apartment and packed. This will probably be my last ‘in situ’ blog as we fly home tomorrow morning. Although it’s been a great holiday – I’m really looking forward to having a proper cup of tea!