Admiral, there be whales here

In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, our old buddy James T. Kirk is an admiral in Starfleet, and they are plagued by a strange, alien entity who communicates through a series of odd sounds.  The closest approximation anyone has for the sounds is the song of the humpback whale.  The big problem is that, by this time in the future, the humpback whale has gone extinct.

And so, the plan is hatched.  The crew of the Enterprise will travel back in time to retrieve two humpback whales.  The whales will communicate with the alien entity, and after that, they can breed and bring back the humpback whale population.  Not too give too much away, but when Scotty beams the whales onto the ship, he utters the otherwise nonsensical line, “Admiral, there be whales here.”  

I told you that to tell you this: Cas and I had cause to repeat that same line, though there were no admirals present with us today.  We got on the train from our bed and breakfast and headed down to the water.  We stopped off at a tourism enter to ask questions, then we went to a nice casual restaurant for lunch.  When you are literally looking at the ocean, you’re pretty much obliged to order fish.  It was amazing, and they had plenty of local beer and cider on tap.  

From there, we went to the Prince of Whales boat for our tour.  We saw a pair of humpback whales.  It was pretty great.  

We also saw some sea lions, a bunch of harbor seals and a pair of bald eagles.  It was a pretty boat ride.  

When that ended, it was actually dinner time.  The woman at the tourism office recommended a place, and we went there.  We had some of the best shrimp dumplings I have ever had, along with a very nice piece of salmon that we shared.  We finished offf the night watching sunset from the tall, circular observation deck high above the city.  

We have big plans tomorrow- hopefully, we can watch a lumberjack show and meet the locally famous pair of grizzly bears.  For now, we’re completely wiped out.  We got up at 4am in Dallas, which is 2am here.  It’s now 10:30 here, so after midnight at home.  I think we’re both running on pure adrenaline from the spectacular day we just had, but that feels like it’s just about run its course.  

Cas is creating a photo album, and I am sure he will have a link to post tomorrow.  Until then, sleep well, and know that there be whales here.