My astute readers probably noticed that I didn't actually post any whale pictures, despite the post being labeled "whale watching". Frankly, my pictures weren't very stunning this time around; they consisted mostly of a small part of whale and a heck of a lot of water. The picture (above) was probably the best picture and honestly, it wasn't even from this trip. This is a blue whale that we saw on our last whale watching trip. Blue whales are about twice as long as grey whales so there is a greater opportunity for shooting whales (with a camera). Instead, I stole some pictures for you off the internet from other people that have managed to get some good shots. First, a little education:
The Gray Whale or Grey Whale (Eschrichtius robustus) is a whale that travels between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of about 16 meters (52 ft), a weight of 36 tons and an age of 50–60 years. Gray Whales were once called Devil Fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted. The Gray Whale is the sole species in the genus Eschrichtius, which in turn is the sole genus in the family Eschrichtiidae. This animal is one of the oldest species of mammals, having been on Earth for about 30 million years.
Gray Whales are distributed in a North-eastern Pacific (American) population and critically endangered North-western Pacific (Asian) population. A third population in the North Atlantic became extinct in the 17th century.
The text, diagrams and most of the pictures are from Wiki, the remaining pictures resulted from a google image search: grey whale
