Thanksgiving Day, 2015
La Jolla. The rarefied beach community of San Diego has some of the most spectacular coastline and sandy stretches of beach found anywhere in the world. As someone who was born and raised in La Jolla, and spent summers as a sunburned-youth on its many beaches, I always find it comforting to go back as often as possible (As I read this back, you'd think I was half-way across the country, not a 17-minute drive away). Whether it’s to sit on the sand and read, don mask and snorkel to swim with the leopard sharks during the summer, or kayak in the kelp-filled ocean surrounding the rocky coastline, it always holds a special place in my heart. That special feeling was reinforced this past Thanksgiving Day.
The Santa Ana weather conditions we were having in San Diego kept the air temperature in the low 80’s along the coast (while the rest of the US was in sub-zero conditions—nyah nyah nyah nyah-nyah) and knocked down the waves to create a smooth, flat ocean. Perfect beach conditions! Despite turkeys, pumpkin pies and yams roasting in ovens all across San Diego County, a lucky few headed to the beach to enjoy the day—Mary and myself included, with kayaks and beach towels in tow.
Our typical routine is to launch our kayaks and head south along the coastline, starting with the caves at La Jolla Cove. If it’s calm enough, we paddle through the single cave that has an exit to it, with a close-up examination of the sea lions that haul themselves out of the water. From there, we head down past Boomer’s, Casa Cove and then paddle toward Windandsea Beach, before heading back. Even though we’ve paddled here 100’s of times, it never gets old.
Today, though, would be different. With the migration of the California Gray whales off our coast fast approaching and the local sighting of a pod of orcas within the past few days, we headed off toward the deep blue sea several miles straight out. With the ideal weather and glassy water, any disturbance on the surface would be easy to spot.
About a mile out, we ran into a few sea lions sunning themselves on the surface—their pectoral fins lazily flopping in the sun while they snoozed the morning away. A bit further out we ran into a larger group of 20-30 bunched together, many of whom were also snoozing as a few slowly swam in amongst their napping pinniped brethren. Although we didn’t see any of them dressed in old sweats and team jerseys, it appeared as if they had already over-eaten and were lounging around waiting for a football game to come on—presumably Miami fans . . . As we approached the group with video camera rolling, a few quickly ducked under water, angrily gnashing their teeth at us for having disturbed their sweet dreams of swimming off into the sunset with The Little Mermaid. With broken aquatic dreams of Ariel left behind, we headed further out into the open ocean with our own thoughts of aquatic adventure.
After paddling several miles offshore, we stopped and hung out, enjoying the sun and solitude, imitating the sea lions we had just left behind. After too much solitude and not enough action, we decided to turn around and head back in. As we prepared to return to the beach, I witnessed a long stretch of activity on the surface about a half-mile further out. On closer inspection, I notice a number of dorsal fins breaking the surface. Hmmm . . . dorsal fins, open ocean and 600+ feet of deep, dark and ominous water below us—what could it be? Dolphins? Orcas? Great whites? Great whites and orcas chasing dolphins, looking for a Thanksgiving feast of their own? Oh, what the hell, let’s paddle over and find out!
As we got closer, we didn’t see any HUGE dorsal fins cutting thru the water, just the ones typically seen on the backs of dolphins. PHEW! We felt safe from becoming an aquatic feast ourselves. However, the more we paddled, the more I noticed the distance between us failed to close, so it was time to put some effort into it. Mary and I may be retired old-farts, but if there’s a chance to paddle with dolphins, we can haul-ass when needed (and suffer later)! Our ass-hauling (and subsequent suffering) was well worth it. We finally caught up to the pod of 100+ dolphins and were able to paddle with them for a few hundred yards before they left us in their wake. For the short distance we kept up with them, it was pretty cool to have dolphins on all four sides, running, jumping, skipping and playing, all the while videotaping it. Spent, but ecstatic, we headed back to shore, now a small dot on the distant horizon.
Question: If you kayaked with a pod of dolphins and napping sea lions, but didn’t download the video before reformatting the video card, did it really happen?
Answer: Yes. You just had to be there!
I hope your Thanksgiving was as enjoyable as ours was!