Pic of The Day: Fluke

[zippyjuan]

Long day. Worked all night, slept four hours then rode ten miles to downtown and caught a boat to go whale watching. Beautiful day out. Last time I went it was cloudy. Whale pics are iffy. After one is located, and someone yells; "There it is!" you missed that one and now you wait for it to breath again. As the whale exhales, the steam in their breath vaporises and that is the spout you see. So now you get one or two more breaths before it goes back under and you have to wait for several more minutes. Both you and the ship captain have to guess where it will be next. Often they just break through the surface and go back under. I had three chances at the "money shot" of the tail coming out of the water. This is the best one. I was trying to use a burst of shots to catch it and on one my burst ended before the tail came up and one just wasn't as good as this one- not as far out of the water. We hit a small group of two or three and one time the surfaced next to the boat. I was on the other side at the time, darn it! These are grey whales who come all the way from Alaska to have their babies in the bays of Mexico. I think that it Tiajuana in the background. We also were briefly accompanied by some dolphins.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v243/JeffryZ/Fluke.jpg

[irwin]

Pic is really noisy. =/

[zippyjuan]

Overcast and heavily cropped.

[thresher]

That was no fluke that was a blessing. :) Whale shots are always amazing. Nice shot Zippy!

[KIISQueen]

love It Zippy =)

[cadetevon]

Nice shot, you're the man Zippy. I can't stand to go out whale watching because the ocean :toxic: just doesn't suit me. :puke:

[zippyjuan]

Even though it was considered to be a big wave day (OB Pier closed) the boats really don't bounce around much. It is pretty calm out away from the shore and the San Diego Bay also does not have much in terms of waves except for those generated by other boats so you should be able to do it! There were two boats out there with about 100 people on each. Nobody got sick.

[surfer]

Cool! I went a year ago but there weren't any whales.

[zippyjuan]

I went with San Diego Harbor Excursions and they guanantee the trip- if you don't see any whales, you can go again later for free.