First of many failed attempts at things on this list!
On our trip round the southwest of America in 2005, my girlfriend and I went to Monterey Bay, not far from San Francisco, to try to see Blue Whales. After under-estimating the journey time down Route 1 from San Fran to Monterey we got there a bit late, and after sprinting to the harbour, saw the last boat of the day chugging off into the distance. V.annoying but as we now had an unplanned day around Monterey we decided to do a thing called ‘17 Mile Drive’. Highly recommended for anyone who’s in the area, it is an incredibly scenic drive which runs between Pacific Grove and Carmel. The road snakes its way along the California coast and then through the Del Monte Forest, taking in sights like Seal Rock, the lone cypress and even the world-famous Pebble Beach golf club.
Anyway, we rose early the following day to try again. The signs outside the Whale watching companies report all blue whale sightings in the previous 2 weeks and we were pleased to see many of them had been spotted nearly every single day along with many other varieties of whale and schools of dolphins. However, either we’re the unluckiest couple in the world, or the sign-writers are slightly economical with the truth as there was nary a blue whale in sight, or even any dolphins. All we saw was a female humpback whale (pictured above) and her calf, which was impressive but not what we had hoped to see.
Oh well, another one remains on the list…
