I'm a Whale Watcher (to be sung to the tune of the Wheel of Fortune promo song)

The Thomases braved temperatures in the high 50s and light, sprinkling rain to go whale watching yesterday. Tom, Shahin, Mack, Laila and I all boarded a boat that was half as seaworthy as the yacht we were hoping we'd be going on and twice as full. Of kids with that frozen green snot stuck in one nostril. And parents who thought that a slippery, rocking deck meant playground on the sea. And reasons not to follow that life path.

After about a 45-minute drive to Long Beach and a 45-minute cruise toward off-shore oil drilling platforms (in California?!!?), we spotted our first "blow." It was the typical puff of water and air that cartoon characters stand on top of, but much less dramatic and long-lasting. Regardless, it offered promise that we would see a gray whale.

This is what we were looking for.

Gray whales migrate from Alaska to Baja California every year between December and April to breed and give birth. There is another population of grey whales in the Pacific that travels between the Sea of Okhotsk and southern Korea, but it is smaller than the California clan. A third population in the North Atlantic was hunted to extinction 300 years ago.

At 52 feet long and weighing 36 tons, the whales live to be about 50–60 years old. They are one of the oldest species of mammals, having been on Earth for about 30 million years, which is weird because Jesus wasn't even around then. Curious.

As we charged ahead to catch up to this whale, we were told that we were pursuing a mother and her calf, and that if she felt threatened, she could speed up or change direction in an instant. Tail-tell (you can pause an admire the wit right there) signs of her course, however, float to the surface and are called footprints. Whenever the whale moves its tail, it interrupts the surface of the water and leaves it looking a little calmer and more glossy than the rest. By following their footprints, you can start to guess where they'll surface.

Can you spot the footprints?

I was expecting a little bit of pomp and circumstance surrounding the surfacing, but, to be honest, it blows (again, feel free to pause and admire the wit). You see a little water explosion, and then a strange, fleshy, cold mass peeks out through the matching waves for an instant, and then it disappears again, leaving you wondering if that was the whale or just weird light on the wave. I wouldn't be nearly as let down if everything I'd ever seen about marine life wasn't courtesy of Sea World. Once you see killer whales jumping through fiery hoops and dolphins launching their trainers fifty feet in the air, well, a whale poof and a part of its back in nature -- the kind that's in view of an off-shore oil drilling platform -- just doesn't get the heart racing.

Share our experience. Save your $25. Preserve your feelings about the general public. And their kids. And the majesty of whales.

This is what we were expecting...

This is what we got.

And a pretty view of Catalina Island.

And lots of pelican sightings.

And a pretty rainbow.