Kayak whale watching

I was searching online for kayaking trip when I found a story of whale watching on kayak. I research further and discovered such trips are available in Santa Cruz!

On this morning, I left for Santa Cruz. From Santa Cruz, we took a van ride to Davenport and launch our kayaks on the shores there. Dave, our tour guide, had a person stationed on shore to help spot whales while we paddle in the ocean, looking for the animal.

The day was quite sunny, but the winds were strong. I could see white peaks on the wave. According to Dave, it was going to make whale spotting more difficult, as the whale's spouting was going to be obscure by the white peaks of waves breaking.

We paddle south for about 2 hours. Along the way, Dave had us fan out to increase our chances of spotting whales. But nothing...I was quite disappointed.

Then came a call that one kayak saw a whale spout. We tried to kayak to its location, but the wave was strong and we were not making good progress. Given the condition, Dave decided to bring everyone back to shore.

We were about the 3rd kayak back to shore. Then we waited and waited...no signs of other kayaks joining us! Our spotter on shore told us that one of the kayak had flipped. They were rescued, but the paddlers were feeling tired. Dave decided to bring them to another beach.

Turns out, that other beach was surrounded by steep cliff. There was no way of carrying the sea kayaks (which are generally more heavy) from the beach back onto the road. Dave had to instruct the rest of the kayak to make another short trip, onto a beach which the kayaks can scale more easily.

By now, it was almost 1pm and the winds had really picked up. Dave's experience really shows. He would observe the wave and had the kayaks come in right at the same time as the wave was coming in, using the wave to help the kayak come ashore. All the kayaks came in fine, until Amy, our assistant tour guide came in. She was in a single kayak, which is more unstable. A side current came when she was trying to shore and flipped her over:(

I was glad our kayak did not flip over, but was a little disappointed since we did not see any whales.