As many of you may already know, Friday I celebrated my 21st birthday.
Ok, maybe not my 21st ... the rest of you who know my true age are on
gag order, haha! Or else I will find you and... you know the rest. LOL.
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| Me at 21, or whatever ;) |
So
for my birthday for the PAST TWO years I have pleaded with my husband
to take me on the Dolphin Sighting Cruise down in Texas. We had been
once before, but never with my daughter. For one reason or another
things never quite worked out for us to go. For instance, once we went
down to go on the cruise and they had JUST closed! So we basically had a
series of mishaps like that. Everyone who knows me, knows that going to
the beach is one of my favorite things.
So,
when we were up in Massachusetts back in November I picked up a bunch
of travel brochures and many of them included different Whale Watching
excursions. I told my hubby then, "please, since we never got to go on
the Dolphin Cruises back in Texas, you can take us to see WHALES
instead!"
So
fast forward to my bday, which was Friday. My husband planned our
excursion. He said "the trip is scheduled for Saturday at 3PM." So
Shabbat morning, we hopped in the truck and drove on over to the Boston
Harbor. It was a little bit of a haul. I think it took us about 1.5
hours to get there from our home in Southbridge. When we were nearly to
Boston I got struck with the URGENT feeling that I needed a potty break!
We were on the Toll Road and there wasn't really anywhere to stop so my
husband just continued on to the harbor. By the time we got to the
Harbor, my eyeballs were floating and I could now see gold fish!! I
was in big trouble. We could not find parking!! We drove around, and
around, and around again! No parking spaces were available!
We drove by a ball field, and figured there would be bathrooms
available here. So we saw a "public toilet" and my husband insisted I
hop out and run over and use the facilities while he waited for me,
before I had an accident! So I hopped out and rushed over to the
bathroom to find that a vagrant had disgustingly smeared feces all over
the toilet lid. Temporarily I felt my need to go to the bathroom lift as
I turned and made a hasty retreat back to my husband in the waiting
vehicle! I proceeded to tell them of my folly as we drove off to
continue to find a bathroom and parking. Finally my husband found a
parking garage. We barely made head clearance in our big truck (felt
like we were in England again with our Audi A100, trying to fit in tiny
places). We parked and began to trek back to the Harbor AND to find a
BATHROOM post haste!!! There were none. I was getting desperate, and the
scarce patches of grass around the place were looking enticing. I
didn't want a ticket though for urinating in public, haha, so I
continued to look for a bathroom, through the windshield wipers on my
eyeballs!
Meanwhile, my husband was using his GPS to try and figure out
how far the harbor was. He gasped when he realized it was going to take
us 49 minutes to WALK to the harbor. The ship was going to depart in 30
minutes! Then I saw a sign that said "beach access." I gallivanted
across the street, I nearly got hit by a car I was so desperate and
elated to see a Bathroom sign in a CLEAN building, I bolted across the
somewhat quiet street just as a car was zooming up towards us. They
stopped and we scurried across the street. I ran up the three steps
grabbed the handles to the door and it was locked, my husband next to me
tried the other door... it was LOCKED! My floating eyeballs were very
misty at this point, when just then a man walks up, clearly headed to
these doors and I turned and desperately asked, "do you know where I can
find a public restroom?" Sensing my condition he took pity on us and
let us in the locked doors to allow us to use the restrooms! Phew! Such
relief. It was like that scene on Austin Powers when he goes to the
bathroom for a very, very, very long time. LOL
So
with that out of the way, we returned to the issue of the FACT that we
were facing the very real situation that if we tried to walk that
distance, we would miss the boat. We had RESERVED tickets so we might
just not get to go at all. Our seats would float out in the ocean
without us :'( . So we hopped back in the truck and zoomed out of that
parking garage, paid $4 for 5 minutes, grrr, and then made haste back to
the harbor.
When we arrived at the intersection with only minutes to
spare... we saw that there was, in fact, a parking garage... right
there. If we had not been so busy looking for a bathroom, or a shop for
us to run in for my urgent need we would have already been parked and on
the ship. With no time to lose, we zoomed in the garage. Of course, no
one else was in a hurry. We are like "PUSH THE BUTTON" to the person in
front of us. We are like "GOOOO ALREADY!" lol... we are breathing down
the person in front of us's back pleading with them to "JUST MOVE" haha!
The stress of the moment has us all in an uproar. We go up all the way
to the top of the parking garage and FINALLY we get a spot! We rush to
the elevator. The doors take an extra long time to close, and then it
proceeds to stop and take a long time to close at every subsequent
floor! It is painful, we should have just taken the stairs. I didn't
have time to think that through though because I was on the phone with
the ticket desk asking if we would have enough time to get there. It was
now 5 after 3PM. The lady at the ticket desk informs me that the boats
leave on time and we are now too late and must take the next Cruise
which leaves at 5:30PM. UGH!!
We get down to the kiosk and stand in yet
another line of about 8 families, when we get to the window, we simply
change our time slot to 5:30 and shamefully turn and wonder "what do we
do now?" We have 2.5 hours to burn, minus 10 minutes due to our wait in
line. We turn and walk down to the harbor. Some people were feeding
giant Striped Sea Bass off the Pier. They are immense in size, probably
about 4-5 feet long. They were eating wads of bread a man was throwing
to them. We were like "whoa!" I had never seen anything like that
before! There were some Mallard ducks attempting to get some bread, and a
little sparrow was standing to the side saying, "what am I, chopped
liver?" (compared to the Bass).
We
continued on down to the end of the Pier. Looked at the mucky sea
water, it reminded me of Great Yarmouth back in England. Not the
prettiest sight, but hey, it's an Ocean, remember Maritza: you like
Oceans, haha! We head back to the kiosk, and consider taking a tour
around Boston on a bus, then my hubby says, "well lets just go to the
New England Aquarium." He says, "we might as well!" So we did, we bought
memberships to save money and in we went. We didn't even have to wait in
line! Other people were being given "time slots" to go in, but we were
able to go straight in. If anyone every visits us we can get you in for
free (only one person, but hey)! So in we go, there were a lot of
visitors there this day. We walked through and my daughter pet the sting
rays, and the star fish. Normally I would be right in there, petting
and such, but not today. I had rings on and I had previously watched my
husband's silver ring tarnish before our eyes in the salt water back at
Matagorda Bay, TX so I worried about my own rings. It was going to be
too much trouble to take them off and put them in my purse, etc.
Besides, I'd touched them all before, so I could forgo this once. Next
time, I would plan better and touch them. For now I would rely on my
memory to remember how they felt. I'm certain it was the same now as it
was then. Sort of a slimy feel. A recalled them to be little sand papery (my daughter said no, that must have been a shark), but mostly, slimy.
We
walked around saw the seals, the most exciting exhibit was the
cylindrical tank in the center of the building that had sea turtles and
giant fish, with lots of little surprises along the way. It was sort of
modeled on the Tower of Babel. We went to the very top and walked down
the ramp. Our timing was impeccable because the divers were in the tank,
and it was feed time. We saw Porcupine Puffers, Dog-faced Puffers, I'm
not strong on my turtle identification, but I'm sure we saw at least one
Logger-head turtle. We saw Flounders, and a HUGE Azure Damsel, we saw lots of
Trigger fish. Big ones and little ones like you would see in home
aquariums. It was great! We felt like, for some fish, we were an exhibit
to them. They would swim by and stop and look at us. I had my cute
Ocean handbag with me that has Seashells on it.
A couple of the Puffers
took an extra long look at that. We finally reached the bottom level,
and my husband's "don't be late" alarm went off. So we wrapped up and
headed over to Dunkin Donuts. Why? Not for Donuts, we got some coffee
and some sandwiches THEN we went back to the ship yard. We got in line
for the Whale Watch tour. It was time!
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| Sea Dragon |
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| Sea Turtle |
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| Sea Turtle |
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| Sting Ray |
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| Sea Turtle |
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| Puffer Fish |
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| Miscellaneous Fish, some Damsels and Angel Fish in there. |
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| This is either a Ribbon Fish or a Knife Fish, I often get the two confused. |
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| View of the ships in the Harbor |
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| The Ocean <3 |
We
sat on the cement wall and ate our sandwiches and just then the camera
people came by to take our pictures. We had our sandwiches in hand,
haha. We would not get to see the pics until we returned. We all giggled
at the thought of how our picture would turn out with our sandwiches and drinks from Dunkin Donuts. We finally made our way down and boarded the
ship. We didn't know what to expect really, but considered that if the
trip was a minimum of 3 hours, then we could probably find a comfy seat
and chill until we got to our destination. So we did. Not long after
sitting (about 2 minutes) my daughter is all antsy and says "we didn't
come on a Whale Watch tour to sit inside on comfy chairs, I want to go
up top and feel the ocean breeze." So my hubby and I look at each other,
remember we had had a stressful trip up to this point and the though of
chilling, and sitting was very appealing. We gave in to better
judgement and decided that my husband would take our daughter up to the
top deck and I would save our seats. Which I did. The boat was filling
fast and people were quick to grab booths and comfy chairs. I was
beginning to suspect that some of these guys had done this before. So
off we went, the boat made it's way out of the harbor and to the open
Ocean. A screen in the room where I sat showed our GPS coordinates. A
voice came over the PA and welcomed us and told us what to expect,
giving safety tips, etc.
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| My loveys! <3 |
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| Did I mention it was windy? LOL |
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| The 3 of us! |
My
family came back and joined me for 5 minutes, then off they went again.
When they returned yet again, I petitioned them to stay while I went
and explored. I noticed that when we boarded the ship everyone seemed to
naturally gravitate UP, so I went back to the lower level. Besides some
suspicious but now "dry" schmutz on the seats there were some good
seating down here. There was a nice view of the Ocean off the bow of the
ship. So I went back up to retrieve my family and bring them down here
so we could have the best of both worlds. I could have a good view of
the Ocean and sit inside AND see my family, they could stand on the bow
of the ship. The seats we chose were good and I struck up conversation
with a small family visiting from Pennsylvania. They were preparing
themselves mentally for a big Carnival Cruise in a couple of weeks. We
discussed Cruises and I assured them that they were going to have a
blast! They proceeded to tell us that we are crazy to move from Texas to
New England, and I agreed on both accounts, haha! I may not be laughing
come winter. We'll see! :) Speaking on the "seat schmutz" my husband
and I know all too well... once when we were on one of our Cruises, we
stopped in Cozumel. When we got off the Cruise ship to go on an
excursion we got on a Ferry to go to land. The water was rather choppy
that day. We had not even finished boarding and the choppiness was
already causing people to get sea sick. My husband and I were fine but
we bolted to the top level. No one was up there, and so there was no
vomit to smell and get sick from. Just beauty and salty sea air. We
stayed up there and gradually some people that had seen us sneak up here
figured it was a good idea and joined us. Downstairs people were puking
everywhere. Lesson learned! I knew what this "seat schmutz" was. Yuck!
For now, the water was smooth and everyone's tummies seemed to be A-ok.
It
didn't seem like too long after, we got our first call on a Whale
Sighting. There was a scramble to the decks and windows as everyone was
trying to catch a glimpse of the whales cresting and diving. We did
catch many sightings, and saw our fair share of Whale Tales. We saw all
Humpback Whales. They are so huge, and it was amazing!! We got in next
to a seasoned "Whale Watcher." He said that we got a "treat" he said on
all the Whale Watching excursions he had been on (he had been on a lot)
he had not seen as many as this! He did say that on previous ones the
Whales would actually come to the boats and look at the people. That was
one thing that did not happen this time though, unfortunately for us. I
would have loved to see them up close! :) So I figured it was a good
idea to sort-of shadow this guy and "do what he did" to be sure we got a
good sighting. My plan was genius. Even to the end when he lined up to
get off the boat first, we did the same. I wasn't an annoying shadow, I
promise. haha... I was a distant observer. We saw one Whale they
identified named "Sachula" which Jason cleverly renamed "Spatula." haha
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| An example of what we saw, my camera could not do justice so I borrowed these images from the internet, Thanks Internet. |
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| An example of what Sachula's Tail looked like. |
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| We were told that Momma's and Babies could be around, we did not see any to note. |
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| It would have been cool to see them underwater! |
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| What Sachula probably looked like when we saw his tail above water. |
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| More Humpbacks... |
So
after all the Whale Watching, it was time to return. When we had
arrived to the Whale Watching area the water began getting choppier, now
on our return it got more and more choppy. This was not good! Remember
the "seat schmutz?" I sensed
they were wrapping up the whale watch and I knew that for the return
trip everyone was going to scramble for seats. It was going to be cold
and dark and what reason would there be to stand outside? So I told my
hubby that I would save seats and that he and my daughter could find me
upstairs waiting, but they just came with me. We grabbed seats, but then
had two more Whale Sightings. My daughter could not resist and
convinced my husband to take her back to the Top Deck, where we started
to begin with. They went up and I saved the seats. People were trickling
in and asking if the seats were taken, to which I responded, Yes...
these three are taken. I turned away many a person. Losing our seats
would be bad, we smartly remembered to bring our jackets/sweaters, but
we so unsmartly left them in our TRUCK, doh! So inside seats would be
essential! My husband and daughter came in, then left AGAIN, this time
it was because the choppy water was beginning to churn people's
stomachs, not good! My husband was one of these and opted to go out for
fresh, sea air, to convince his stomach to stop doing flips. I was
feeling a little funny, but I calmed myself with deep breaths and
relaxation techniques. I also lost the 2 seats I was saving to some
Chinese people that could not understand my denials to their taking the
seats. I took pity on them, a Mom and Son who was feeling ill. I
shrugged it off, I had no idea where my family was anyhow, in fact, they
had been gone a while now and I was started to get worried. The boat
was really pitching and rocking now. I could imagine someone getting
pitched overboard. I imagined the worst and then finally decided I'd
best go make sure they were ok. But first I would text them. When I
received no response, it was time to abandon my seat to search for them.
It was dark out now and I first checked the top deck. They weren't
there, all the pitching and rocking made my way difficult. I went down
to the restroom area, they weren't there, but there were lots of "green
people" in all different shades of green. Not good, I popped in the
bathroom, the made a hasty retreat out of that area unless I myself
became a victim to the sea sickness! I checked out the window to the
back deck, checked the bow, went back upstairs, came back downstairs, I
really had my sea legs now and I could NOT locate my family! I
considered asking them to page them on the P.A., haha, but then I figured
my family would probably not even hear because from the outer decks you
can not hear the P.A. very well at all. So on my 5th round on the ship I
came down by the bathrooms once again and my daughter opened the door. I
said "where have you guys been!?!?!? I've been looking all over for you
guys." During my search I noticed a lot of people were sitting on the floor under the edge of the
ship to avoid the access cold air, but still have fresh air to breathe. I
searched high and low, and was relieved to finally have found them. We found a wall to
hug, sipped some Ginger Ale and waited impatiently for the ship to
arrive back to dry land. This ship full of land lubbers was spent! There
was hardly a person onboard that was NOT some shade of green!
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| The ads on FB said this... |
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| What we saw more-or-less. My camera took less than satisfactory pics. |
Amidst all the turmoil, I recalled a post on Facebook about the Super Moon that should be visible this night. As I passed the various windows in search of my family, I captured glimpses of it. To be honest, it looked to me like any other Full Moon I had seen in the past, but it had a reddish-orange hue to it. Very beautiful, certainly.
We
finally arrived, and we were right be the exit, so we got off straight
away. We got in the truck to find ourselves in another desperate
state... our truck was so low on gas it was not on "E" for Empty, it was
on "W" for Walk! On fumes we mapped with our GPS to a gas company and
arrived promptly at an "oil shop" that sells oil for your furnace! Doh!
We got on the highway and watched painfully as we went over the top of a
Mobil station! haha... we were frustrated and worried! We finally
coasted into a gas station. Filled up and then we realized our tummies
needed filling up. We were hungry! There was a McDonald's nearby, it
would have to do. My daughter and I walked over there, cars were zipping
around, the lobby and drive through were FULL to bursting. So we
decided on "Plan B" drive towards home and find another place. Well it
was a McDonald's off the Pike. That was the MOST EXPENSIVE set of Big
Mac's I have EVER had. Our meal cost us $25 bucks, but hey they tossed
in a "free" medium fry. Wow! We hardly EVER eat at McDonald's mind you.
We were, as I said, desperate. It was after 10 PM and we had an hour
drive left, we were fairly certain there would not be many more choices
to be had.
So
that was that, we got home at near midnight, fed and pottied the dogs,
fed the horses and hit the hay! :) What an adventure! I woke up this
morning and had to peel myself out of bed. Feeling refreshed!
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