Having a Whale of a Good Time!
I love this time of year. Travel for work is at a minimum, few clients are calling, stress levels are low and I can get caught up on some paperwork. Plus there’s nothing to keep me from being active every day and staying consistent with my workouts! I go for a walk for at least an hour a day with my wife (unless its raining), I get the occasional bike ride in, plus I’ve taken up swimming again at the community pool. And summer is the time for doing some special things, like the boat tour we took on Sunday. I’ve done the tour twice several years ago, so I knew what to expect, but this time the experience exceeded all my expectations.
The weather was perfect on the water. A low cloud cover kept it from being too hot, and there was a light breeze, but the ocean was calm. The boat was at capacity, about 50 people, mostly out of province tourists. We were on the top deck with a perfect view. We weren’t far from the dock when the puffins started to appear! As we steamed towards the island where they nested, the number of birds bobbing on the water multiplied until it was like someone had shaken pepper over the ocean! They were everywhere! In the meantime we saw several whales in the distance, but the tour guide said not to worry, when we get to a better spot there’ll be more than enough whales to view. We went to the island where the puffins have their burrows, and the boat went very close to the sheer cliff wall. We floated along maybe 20 feet from the island as the puffins and many other seabirds went about their business. The pufflings couldn’t be seen, they stay in the burrows until they are ready to go to sea, but we could see the small downy chicks of other species in their nests on the rocky cliff edges. What a sight for bird lovers! Soon we moved away, a little further into open water, where our attention turned to the real show-stoppers, the humpack whales. At one point their spouts could be seen everywhere you looked! The guide said we were among a pod of about 20. The boat doesn’t chase the whales, the whales come to the boat. Humpbacks are very sociable, small boats don’t bother them in the least. If they want to get away, all they have to do is dive. They were in a good mood, having been feeding on caplin in those waters for several weeks. We saw a Mother and calf, but she didn’t get as close as most of the whales, which is understandable. At one point we saw a small pod of dolphins go racing by, so close to a couple of whales they almost seemed to jump over them! A couple of whales really put on a show for us. One of them breached (it jumped right out of the water) but I missed it because I was looking the other way. All I saw was the foamy surface where it went back in. Then for the grand finale one whale decided to come up right next to the boat, swim parallel to it, and start rolling on its back, bringing its huge fluke out of the water, wave it a little and then slap it down with a thunderous splash! It must have done this a dozen times as we looked on in awe. You could see the ridges on its belly and the barnacles stuck to its huge tail, it was so close! I had seen humpbacks swimming up close before, but I had never witnessed this spectacular behavior. It was something I will always remember!
That was Sunday, the second of my two days off from the gym. On Monday I had a good chest workout with some back thrown in. I was working on pull-ups, which are coming along slowly but surely. Tuesday evening I went swimming, the second time since the pool opened for the season. There were only six of us in the pool and I had my newly purchased goggles so I could open my eyes under water while wearing my contacts. I had a great swim, working on different strokes, and at one point I felt strong enough to do two lengths of the pool without resting. I even successfully did the backstroke for one pool-length, something I had always struggled with when I used to swim regularly years ago.
On Wednesday at the gym I did arms and abs. I finally got up the courage to do triceps dips again. I say that because my first gym injury was caused by doing dips and not being strong enough for it and not really knowing what I was doing. Since then I have avoided it, fearing another injury. But I have felt so strong lately and have watched so many people doing dips I felt like I was ready to give them a try again. I did one set of 10 with no real trouble, except that my legs started to swing towards the end. I guess I will get better at keeping my balance the more experienced I get with it. Tonight, Thursday, I’m going swimming with my 5 year old nephew. I won’t be able to do laps since he’s just learning to swim and I promised to help him, but I’m sure it will be fun and somewhat of a workout anyway. Tomorrow night it’s time for deadlifts again, and I’ll throw in some shoulder and traps work too.
Anyway, that’s an update on what I’ve been doing, hope you enjoyed the puffin and whale story!
