Orca!

Tim looked at me as we road back to the mainland, fingers still numb from the cold, wet wind and said, "Even counting last year's trip, this was the coolest 'event' I've ever done."

I nodded my head and smiled in agreement.

Today we went whale-watching for orcas in the San Juan Islands. It was cool. And although neither of us got a shot of it, we got to see one breach (that's when one leaps up, arches, then flops back down in the water). Some of them got within 20-30 feet of the boat. I think we saw 5-7 different orcas, each of them putting on a little show. We also saw a "minky" whale. I'm not exactly sure what that is, but we got to see one--a baby one--apparently they had not seen a baby in those waters recently, so we were one of the first to see him/her.

I don't usually advertise, but we went with a company called Island Adventures. They were an excellent outfit. From all the information we got at check-in to the captain, first mate, naturalist, and rookie jack-of-all-trades on board, we could not have asked for a better experience. Neither words nor any of the pictures we got (I almost just put down my camera and enjoyed the "show") could describe these huge animals. I'm only going to put up a few pictures because basically, they all look about the same. I would highly recommend going to any who gets the chance.