October 2010

Stacy Lyn was invited on a one-in-a-lifetime whale-watching voyage on the Gulf of Guinea. We – her Traveling Socks – thought this sounded like a great opportunity. After all, she is a coastal gal. She grew up in Louisiana, always near or on water, as the case may be, but never had she witnessed whales in the wild. She didn’t worry about being on the open water – she had never once been seasick, even on a sailboat listing precariously at a frightening ninety-degree angle on the Gulf of Mexico.

“Whale-watching – why not? Sign me up!” said she.

She was right about this being an adventure, though not the kind she anticipated.

The skipper drove around the gulf for about thirty minutes looking for the whales.
Suddenly, one appeared in the distance.
He rolled over in the water, toying with us.
Then the boat began to bob up and down furiously. Uh, oh.
Stacy Lyn’s stomach began to bop up and down with the motion of the boat.
That had never happened to her before.

Look – a baby surfaced with his mother!

Thank goodness Stacy Lyn’s friends John and Loretta were there with their camera. -
Stacy Lyn had no energy for photography between peeks at the whales and hurling over the side of the boat.

Another whale came up to frolic with the others.

Poor Stacy Lyn was eating saltines, bless her heart.

Meanwhile, Mama and Baby disappeared beneath the surface to go swim somewhere else.

And the pod disappeared as quietly and quickly as they had appeared.

Stacy Lyn was glad to have experienced whales in their habitat,
but also glad for the experience to come to an end.
She got a good ab work-out that day, and we Socks never saw the light of day!

Things are always interesting, to say the least, when in West Africa.