Whalecome to Santa Barbara

Ok, so the well awaited last-day-of-the-family-vacation photos are a month late.   Sue me.  I was side-tracked by the work month from hell.  If only this blog could pay my bills and I wouldn't have to work for the man and could just sit on the other side of this laptop all day entertaining you fine folks... a girl can dream....

Anyway, here are the photos:

On the last day the female family (minus the baby) and their associated male counterparts boarded a whale watching cruise, The Condor Express, out of the Santa Barbara harbor.

In this photo Trevor explains how whales use their back muscles to breach out of the water....

just kidding, Trevor is just an animated guy and talks with his hands

Here we are cozying up for a coffee:

And the rest of the trip was really boring and everyone fell asleep:

Just kidding!!!  How could this be boring?!

We left the harbor and within 30 seconds saw a group of sea lions on a buoy:

This may seem special to tourists, but the locals know they are always  there!

Here we are all bundled up waiting for some action:

Ahhh young love:

Then we stopped by one of the oil rigs scattered up the coast of Santa Barbara:

there's oil in these waters!

In the distance the captain spots a flock of pelicans and a  "mega pod" of 1,000+ dolphins heading for it:

this is better than Sea World

We are in hot pursuit:

 This is what all the action was about:

Mom approved:

Then the dolphins tried to race the boat:

Then we left the dolphins to cruise around a little more...

We took the boat out to the Channel Islands:

We eventually saw a pod of grey whales, but sorry... I didn't get any good pictures.  Luckily google has a plethora of good whale pictures.

They caught this humpback catching some air:

 

And snapped this blue whale right after it was born:

 

 They found this one at the bottom of the ocean:

And snapped this shot of  killer whale having fun with a dolphin:

This was not fun for the dolphin

Can't go wrong with a Beluga:

I feel like I know this guy...

 And my personal favorite, the mythical Narwhal

Just plain biazzare...

After the boat we headed off to the Ellwood Butterfly Preserve for some flying insect action:

Fun fact:  Monarch butterflies are the only insect to migrate up to 2,500 miles to get out of the cold weather and hibernate.  But not all monarch butterflies migrate; only the fourth generation of monarchs can migrate each year because the first three generations die after about six weeks from escaping their cocoons.

Those clusters on the tree branches aren't all leaves... they are hundreds of thousands of butterflies!

Then we walked to the bluffs to see what the Pacific was up to:

It's a tough life we lead....

 

So...who wants to visit next?