101 palpitations Days 13to15 The good the bad and the awful

[rummy63]

At last I am getting to the end.

I have decided to entitle my last 3 days The good the bad and the awful

Day 15 was very sad so it will be short.

Its day 13 in the big bother house and today we are going whale watching with Stagnorus.

I got weighed this morning and guess what?

I have lost 6 pounds.

Mindst you losing 6 pounds off my body is akin to losing one deck chair off the Queen Mary.

Naturally first job is to find breakfast.

We are not going back to Lindas because our legs just aren't hairy enough.

We sent Dumb and Dumber with a list to Safeways.

Confident they would get lost and be ages we settled on to the patio for some much needed R and R.

This holiday we have been on the go all the time so its nice to just sit.

Peace was soon shattered they were back within the hour.

Anyway breakfast over, we had a drive down to the pier to find mooring F.

This is where Staggies boat is and it is leaving at 1.00p.m.

Good job we went on a recon it took ages to find.

There were three harbours and hundreds of boats.

Finally found F and it turned out it was about 3 minutes from the house.

Staggies boat was already moored there. It really looked the business.

To kill a bit of time we had a drive into Santa Cruz town.

The town was interesing in a quaint old fashioned sort of way.

There was evidence of the credit crunch. shops and buildings had foreclosed.

We had a coffee at a pavement cafe.

We were approached three times by people begging for change.

One poor sod didn't even have any shoes on.

We didn't bother getting anything to eat as the ad for Staggies boat said there was a good selection of subs and snacks on the boat.

We made our way back to the pier.

About 30 people had turned up for the trip.

We queued to pay it cost 30 dollars each.

The bloke in front of me was cracking me up.

He had a really bad spray tan, he looked like he'de just been Tangoed.
He was dressed in white shorts and polo top with a pale blue jumper draped casually across his shoulders.
Topped off with a white peaked captains hat.

The medallion hung round his neck could have anchored the bloody boat.
He was talking on a walkie talkie to Dead Man.

Well it looked like a walkie talkie it could have been the latest I phone "whatsit" for all I know.

"Blue Bird to Dead Man do you copy Dead Man ".

Short burst of crackling

"Dead Man this is Bluebird do you copy?"

"Dead Man you are late we set sail at thirteen hundred do you copy?"

He stood aside to let us pay obviously waiting until Dead Man turned up.

We boarded the boat.

Once all aboard we had a Health and Safety Lecture.

Only to be interrupted by Bluebird and Dead man arriving late.

To be fair Dead Man looked quite normal and there was no evidence of a walkie talkie about his person.

We then had a lecture on how to spot the whales.

Basically you had to look for what looked like a puff of smoke.

If spotted the Captain had to be informed immediately as the more pairs of eyes the better.

It was then a case of sit where you can.

I positioned myself on the box that contained the life jackets.

About an hour passed we had sailed about 40 miles out it became colder and colder and the sea became choppier and choppier.

We were hungry and there was no evidence of any snacks on the boat.

In fact the cooker didn't look as though it had seen any kind of service since Noah was a lad.

I was getting quite down hearted perhaps we had paid this money to sit starving, freezing and we weren't guaranteed to see any whales.

Then several people started to chuck.

To make things worse some of the gormless burghers were chucking into the wind.

Poor Siggy the deck hand kept having to swill the deck and rails.

There were little holes at the side of the deck for it to seep out.

I became the self appointed chuck monitor.



Every time anybody came up looking a bit limey I pointed to the rail and shouted "Starboard".

Next thing Blue Bird came up looking a shade more minty than limey.

Just at that I saw it.

I was pointing and shouting "PUFF! "



Blue Bird whipped round really indignant and dropped his walkie talkie.

It broke.

OOPS!

Staggie manouvered the boat in the direction.

Then he killed the engine.

A bit of a mist had dropped everything was eerily quiet apart from the odd crackle coming from poor Blue Birds phone.



Within minutes we were surrounded by whales we stayed there for about an hour just observing.



It was one of the best experiences I have ever had.

Reluctantly we had to start back home.

About half an hour later Staggy announced that a pod of dolphins were swimming at the side of the boat.

Everybody moved to the side, I couldn't see anything.

He slowed the boat down. It was lurching quite badly.

I decided to move further down to the front I might get a better view.

The boat was bobbing about so much it was like wading through treacle with flippers on.

I finally made it to the front then Staggy announced the dolphins were on the other side.

Everybody moved to the other side, this caused the boat to really rock.

I went down like a sack of spuds.

Because I had so many clothes on I just couldn't get back up.

I was like a beached whale, there was nothing to grab hold of and heave myself up.

Nobody helped me.

In fact people were stepping over me in their eagerness to catch a photo of bloody flipper.

That BlueBird took great delight in mincing over me.

I could see it in his evil little piggy eyes he was debating whether to step on my neck or not.

All I needed was a helping hand.

I couldn't believe the selfishness of these people.

After all I'de done for them what with being the chuck monitor and spotting the first puff.

AL came to my side of the boat he looked down the aisle and spotted me on the floor.

"What are you doing on the floor?"

"I'm trying to catch a nice photo of the bloody deck what do you think I'm doing?"

He was trying to get down the boat to me but he was getting tossed about as well.

Finally the boat lurched and I rolled with it and managed to put my hand through the hole that the chuck had been swept through.

I reached up with my other hand, grabbed the rail and pulled myself up.

I made my way to the bathroom trying to shake the carrots out of my hair.
It's really difficult trying to maintain some sense of decorum having just rolled about on a spew riddled deck.

Did I think the trip was worth it? .

Absolutely.

We landed about 5.00 pm and went back to the house for a proper clean up.

We were ravenous but we didn't have any proper food in the house just snacky things.

We went back to Santa Cruz and called to Rosie McCanns Irish pub.

Now I have read some stinging reports about this place not the food, just staff attitude.

Whats a little thing like attitude in the persuit of good Irish comfort food?

We ordered 4 large home made soups, the waitress was about to walk off when we asked her to take our main order of 4 lamb dinners.

I did note a hint of surprise on the lassies face.

The soup bowl was massive with a huge chunk of thick bread on the side.

It was really thick with vegatables lentils chick peas the works. Plus it was to die for.

Knowing we had the lamb to come we tried not to eat it all but we were hungry and it was irresistable.

We only managed to pick at the main meal. There was nothing wrong with it we were just full.

The meal came to 130 dollars and basically we could have got away with 30.

Plus there wasn't a hint of attitude.

We finished the night on the balcony with a few voddies.

This was my good day

[miss lumpy]

What a special day you've had
The whale spotting sounds exciting

I have a mental picture in my head of you rolling around on the floor struggling to get up makes me laugh

cant wait for the bad & awful days

[jubileegirl]

So impatient to hear about the rest!

[Guest]

I want to whale watch

[disney owl]

where's the rest?

[Gill H]

PUFF!

Love it.