Today we got up early-ish and enjoyed another free breakfast at the hostel. We had a couple of hours to kill before we had to leave for our Whale watching trip so we walked to the local grocery store to stock up on food for our lunch and dinner that day. Back at the hostel we made our packed lunches and then got the bus to Fisherman's wharf to check in for our trip (every coastal resort here seems to have a Fisherman's wharf...).

On the wharf we found the office for the company we'd booked with (there were quite a few whale watching companies!) and checked in for our trip. We were told that they'd had a good morning and had seen quite a few whales so we should have a good afternoon! We sat on a bench nearby and ate our packed lunches - people had tried to entice us into their posh restaurants, but no, we had come prepared with our sarnies! We still had about an hour until our trip began so we browsed in a few of the 'tat' shops nearby then spent some time watching the sea lions lounging in the water nearby. We watched one try, unsuccessfully, to launch himself onto a buoy which was already inhabited by about 4 other sea lions. He never did manage to get up there while we were watching!

Anyway, onto the trip...after we had boarded and our deckhand Everett had given us a safety talk (including telling us that if we were going to see our lunch again, to make sure it went over the railings into the water!) and our naturalist Laurie had told us a bit about what we were hoping to see today, we started sailing out into the water of Monterey Bay, towards a spot where Blue Whales had been seen that morning. Almost straight away, Laurie told us where to look and we started to see the unmistakeable 'blows' of blue whales who were diving for food. It was an amazing experience and really exciting. I was trying to take photos while holding onto the railing so I didn't fall over (it was very choppy out there!). And everytime we saw part of the whale surface as they were turning to dive, everyone gasped and tried to capture it on camera. I got a few good photos (as you will see when we eventually manage to upload them), but the photos don't really do it justice. We were told that we were extremely lucky to see Blue Whales (we saw 7 in total) as they are quite rare and sometimes they don't see any all year, but at the moment they are spotting them a lot. We couldn't believe it when we were told that the Whales we were watching were longer than the boat we were on, it's so hard to imagine how big they really are.

After about an hour of watching the Blue Whales we sailed further out into the Ocean and started our search for Humpback Whales, which are spotted more frequently. We saw about 4 Humpbacks altogether, and one was quite active and almost jumped all the way out of the water at one point. Our guide said that could have been for our benefit! It was an amazing afternoon, and yet another experience we won't forget!

Back at the hostel that night we ate our food we'd bought earlier and spent a bit of time reading in the massive lounge area of the hostel. There weren't many people around so we didn't really get talking to anyone. We've found that sometimes in hostels you end up talking to everyone, and sometimes we end up just keeping to ourselves. Either way, we've felt very at home and comfortable in most of the places we've stayed. This is coming from someone who was dreading staying in hostels!!

Before bed we packed our bags (we're getting good at this now!) ready for our early start the next day. LA here we come!