Weekend at Sea: Surfing and Whale Watching!

CIEE, the program that Clark sent me here on, offers free surfing lessons so a big group of us went on Saturday morning. It was an overcast day but with wet suits on the water felt great! We were all so excited to get out on the water. I was nervous because I hate that feeling of being stuck in a breaking wave-it was fine though! We rode on the white wash waves, so they were powerful, but couldn't swallow us up or anything-perfect for learning.

It was quite a workout! My triceps were sore for like three days after from pushing up from the board. I was surprised how quickly everyone caught on cause surfing is known for being really hard to get good at. Most of the people in my group stood up on the board. I got up on the board a few times, but I was so far back on the board that it was leaning backwards because of my weight. When that happened it would act as like a break and slow me waay down, so I'd only end up standing for a few seconds before falling off because I was barely moving. It was a struggle, but I had a really great time! My friends and I are going to go again in the upcoming weekends. Since we've already learned we can just rent boards and try to get better!

Overcast day...


Surf shop we went to on Trigg Beach.



The next day we went Whale Watching! I'd never been before so I was pretty excited...nervous too though because I get seasick if it's rocky out at deep sea. I took 2 of the Aussie version of Dramamene and just had some spurts of dizziness. It was a nice boat, really big too.




We saw lots of whales! I was thinking we'd only see a few, but we actually saw probably about ten or more? Most of them were in groups of 2-4.




A yacht we all wish we could own, also out to sea on this beautiful day.




We saw so many because this is the peak of their migration season. They move from an area in the Kimberlies (Northern Australia) down to the ocean nearer to Antarctica, since it's finally spring here!




This was through a dirty window :(



We stopped seeing whales so frequently so we went inside to sit down. (the sun is exhausting!) And the woman on the intercom screams into the microphone and we all look. There was a whale not more than 20 ft. from the boat! It was kind of scary because they are such huge animals, but the woman just said that sometimes they get curious and come close to the boats. There's an Australian law that says a boat can't get closer than 100m to a whale, 300m if there's a calf!

About a week after this I went to an Aquarium where I learned more about humpback whales...






Later that night we went to North Freo to see Keith perform! Great weekend :)