That's No Rat

I asked Tutu last night what the name of the beach is where we saw what we saw a week ago. It might be called 'Rat' beach, but without better information we settled on the descriptive name of, 'The beach down the hill from P.V.' Without further ado, the story of our beach trip.
To get the full story you have to go on a journey with me up the western coast of North America, to a charming little area known as the Pacific Northwest. Every time I visit there, specifically Portland, Oregon, I am struck by the sheer green-ness everywhere. Monstrous trees, lush carpets of grass (with no visible irrigation systems!). A beautiful and world renown rose garden. Quite a feast for the eyes. Well, all of that vegetation comes at a price, a price I am not willing to pay. The average annual rainfall in Portland is 36.3 inches. For 2006 San Diego got 5.12 inches. For comparisons sake, if all the rain in Portland happened at one time, poor Kulia would need a snorkel to survive. For Sammy in San Diego, his shorts wouldn't get wet, at least until he jumped into the little puddle.

Fast forward to a visit to the city of Angels by Portland resident Auntie Chrissie. 'Let's go to the beach' Auntie Chrissie would say. Uh, its cloudy and yuck outside, are you crazy? Come on, it's not raining, it is at least 50 degrees outside, this is beach weather. Uh, okay. She established the precedent for us wimpy southern California folks to go to the beach in less than ideal conditions. And it was fun. Even in less than ideal conditions all of the kids had fun in the sand, and running to the waters edge.

So, last weekend while up at Tutu and Papa's house someone had the idea of going to the beach. None of the adults (Dan, Suzy, Tutu, Papa) were very enthusiastic about this idea, but the boys (Daniel, Sammy) were quite excited. We threw stuff in the van, and ventured down the hill. Boys happy, adults leery. Well, thank you Auntie Chrissie, because it was fun. Sammy and Daniel had a great time playing in the sand. But most of their fun was had in the water. The horribly cold water. They both loved it. Getting soaked by waves they weren't fast enough to run from. Wading out holding onto someone's hand. I had a blast with them, it sure looked like Papa did too. There is nothing like having kids open your eyes to fun.

There we were, Daniel and I, standing in the area where the waves wash up, but it is mostly dry. At least for me. Daniel was wet through and through. That was when I saw it. The last time we were up there we saw some dolphins swimming around out by the surf line. That was pretty cool, and naturally when I saw something out there among the few surfers braving the chilly conditions I assumed it was more dolphins. With one eye and a strong grip on Daniel, I continued to look for the 'dolphin'. Oh, there it was, but that was no dolphin. That was dark with some white on it. What the heck, I think that was a whale. I kept watching. Oh, my, there it was again. By this time I was convinced. I told Daniel, and started looking around for Tutu, Papa, Suzy or Sammy to share my discovery. Tutu was up on the beach warming up Sammy. Papa was close, so I told him. I found Suzy. By this time I had seen the whale a few more times, and was amazed at how close it was. It was in the surf line. With the surfers. I watched one of the surfers paddle a little closer to it, and then quickly back away. As the waves would form I would see the whale's flippers, head or tail pop out of the water. Man, it was huge. Twenty feet long at least. Probably closer to twenty five or thirty. And it was only thirty yards off shore. Impossibly close. Thank goodness by this time Suzy had grabbed her camera. I hope these shots do justice to how amazing the experience was. This was a huge whale just off the beach (to the point we were wondering if there was some problem), and we were watching it just play in the waves. The boys could see it, but I don't think they quite understood the rarity of the moment. They have both seen whales plenty of times at Sea World, and thought this must be the same. All of the adults on the beach just stopped and stared.

We watched for a while more, until it swam away. Then packed up to head for home. Thank you again, Auntie Chrissie, without your lousy Portland weather we would have missed out on the chance to see one of God's amazing creatures up close and personal. A whale. I still shake my head when I think about it.