Whale Watching in Linda Mar

Got to Linda Mar around 9:30 AM on Sunday June 7th for an anticipated day of fun on the beach and in the ocean with the family. This included my folks, my brother, my niece, and my wife and kids. This was mine and my brothers first time in the ocean with the kayaks so we parked on the south side of the beach for an easy launch and landing. The conditions were perfect. We launched through the small surf and headed to the mouth of the cove to see what we could find and just get comfortable being in the ocean on the yaks.

We saw several good sized jelly fish floating on the surface. The swell was minimal and we were just paddling around just siked to be there. We headed back to the beach to practice landing. The wind had kicked up a little, so the waves were a little bigger (still small). I made it to the beach with no problem only to look to my left to see my brother flopping in the surf. Of course we laughed and harassed him a bit. Everyone asked if we saw the whales spouting off out there and of course we did not, so we jumped back in the kayaks and headed out again to see what we could find.

We could see them breaching in the distance and it was a great site. We paddled out for a closer look. I felt like a kid at Christmas who just got his first bike. I was so stoked and having such a great time. We had a whale breach about 30-50 yds to the right of us and it was amazing. We hung out for a bit and it must have circled us, because it ended up on our right side much closer. I was wondering what it would have looked like on the fish finder, a submarine?

We paddled back in after a bit and of course the waves were a bit bigger and breaking much more now. I positioned myself too close to shore and couldn't avoid a two footer ready to break behind me. It picked me up and started pitching me to the right side. I remembered reading an article where the kayak enthusiast mentioned leaning into the wave. This is what I did and I accelerated towards the beach continuing my path to the right. I was sure I was going to eat it, but I ended up popping up and over the wave...whoo hoo I made it. My brother is laughing at me until I mention to him he better look behind him. His eyes got big and I could see the oh sh@$ look on his face. He also leaned into the wave and came out unscathed. I practiced some more launching and landing as well as self rescue in about 10 ft of water. I was hoping to get some perch fishing in from the beach, but just couldn't pull myself away from the fun I was having out there.

I shot a video of the whale breaching. I am going to try to post. The camera I was using wasn't very good, but you can hear the excitement in my voice. I will need much more practice to even compete with all the Video Veterans here.

The madness only intensifies and I was not even fishing yet,
Ray

Conditions:  8.5
Wildlife:  9.5
Gear:  9
Video:  8.5
Enthusiasm:  10

Welcome to "Yakking with the Stars", otherwise known as the Madness!   

Great job - keep doing what you're doing.   

thanks for the post sounds like a perfect day with the family, cameron

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.   I can feel your enthusiasm.  Excellent report, pictures, and video.  Keep them coming...

Ah, I recall my first ime experience of the high brace-side-surf-into-the-beach. Such fun!

Congrats on doing what a lot of folks miss: get the paddling thing down before adding all that fishing stuff on top of it. Great job!

nice pics too!