<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Fun and entertaining report, Chris.<div><br></div><div>Ya, Minkes are usually pretty shy, so very cool you saw it for a good bit.<br><div><br></div><div>Always fun to see the international crowd there.<br><div><br></div><div>Going out Thursday with relatives from Australia and Bolder City, Nevada, so gotta produce some good looks.<br><div><br></div><div>Thanks</div><div><br></div><div>Ken Tatro</div><div><br></div><div><div>On Sep 7, 2009, at 9:42 PM, Christopher Carlson wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Good evening sportsfans,</div>
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<div>Just the facts ma'am:</div>
<div>-1 Blue Whale</div>
<div>-1 Minke Whale</div>
<div>-Thousands of Delphinus </div>
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<div>Today Scott Cuzzo, Alexa Mutti, and I (Chris Carlson) went aboard Captain Mat's whale watching trek. A little over 100 from Ireland, England, Germany, Japan, and good ol' fashioned California joined us. It was a hot day but not too windy which was a nice break. We spotted a lone blue whale around 11:00 quite a ways north of Santa Cruz Island which was unusual but a real treat. The folks got a real good look at him, which was excellent. We spotted two separate large common dolphin pods, right off of western Santa Cruz and a smaller one on the way home, and everyone got a real kick out of their total belly flops as they sailed clear out of the water. On the way back, we got an absolutely excellent look at a minke whale, which was impressive as I had never seen one before for longer than five seconds. On the not as great side of things, we thought we spotted a harbor seal body floating in the water just outside of Painted Cave. But I guess it's the circle of life, right? A gaggle of docents from Morro Bay joined us and were anxious to see how the naturalists for this park handled. I hope we lived up to the challenge!</div>
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<div>Fair weather, fair whales, fair dolphins, fair sea birds, fair sea lions, fair people, fair company, not-so-fair traffic on the way back home. I had a really great day. I hope the rest did too! :)</div>
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<div>Chris Carlson</div>
<div><a href="mailto:chrisjamescarlson@gmail.com">chrisjamescarlson@gmail.com</a></div>
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