WHALE TALES!

Today is Stud's 27th birthday, and he of course, has to work.  But yesterday, he had a day off so instead of giving him a gift, I planned a birthday day celebration.  He had no idea what we were doing until we were about half way there yesterday when the the curiosity finally got the better of him.  For his birthday, we went to Plymouth, MA and had lunch, went WHALE WATCHING, and then had a picnic dinner on the beach!  I planned a pretty awesome day if I do say so myself.  Plymouth was 1. closer than I thought (only an hour) and 2. a very cute New England harbor town!  Before we got on the boat, I made sure we went and actually saw THE Plymouth Rock.  I had no idea there is a literal rock.  What I also learned is that the Pilgrims first landed at Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod, were dissatisfied with the lack of fresh water and the bad for crops sandy soil, so left the women and children behind to explore the Massachusetts coast, eventually settling on Plymouth.

 

Whale watching was much more crowded than I thought it would be on a random Thursday.  We went with a company called Captain Johns and I think they sent out three boats yesterday afternoon.  Each boat had a naturalist on board who knows all sorts of random facts and can also identify all the whales.  It was about an hour and half ride to the whale feeding grounds, and once we were there, the whales put on a great show!  We found a group of four humpback whales feeding together, and they surfaced several times very close to our boat!  Some of the pictures below are from the Captain John blog since I was too entranced by the whales to take decent pics!

Captain John

Captain John

Captain John

And then the very best!  We had a whale do a spinning head breach and one of the passengers managed to capture it on video (I love his commentary - I got that!):

Then we drove to the beach and had a picnic dinner while the sun set.  It was a great way to end our day.  I think Stud was able to enjoy his birthday (a day early) and get to relax some as well.  And whales are the coolest.  For sure.

Block Island

Last week, Stud had a rare day off that was not a shift switch, so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and went over to Block Island!  It is a tiny little island about an hour by ferry from the mainland, and it's a gorgeous spot.  So quiet compared to some of the beaches in Rhode Island!  I woke Stud around 9:30 so we could head down and catch the 11:00 ferry. Dogs are welcome on the ferry and on all the beaches on Block Island, so Beau came along for our adventure.  He DID NOT like the horn on the ferry, but other than that seemed to enjoy his first boat ride.

When you arrive on Block Island, there are tons of small beach front B&Bs and little hotels and a small little town with some really cute shops and restaurants.  Stud and I packed lunch and ate it on the ferry, so we were ready to get going once we got on shore.  Our first stop was about a mile walk, the island has plenty of bike and moped rentals, but we wanted to get some exercise, so off we went to the Southeast Lighthouse.  There are two main lighthouses on the island, but this one had a really close beach as well!  And not too shabby of a lighthouse...

From there we walked about 20 feet to the Moheagan Bluffs lookout which has a little path down to a beach.  We walked down the beach and found a spot where Beau wouldn't be harassing strangers and set up for an afternoon at the beach.  The ocean was great, it was a nice sandy beach and Beau was playing the in water the whole time we were there.

As you can tell, we had amazing weather for our day on Block Island...we went through a substantial amount of sunscreen (I was tan...Stud was a tomato).  After the beach, we walked back to town, did a little shopping, and grabbed dinner at a little seafood restaurant.  While waiting for our 7:30 ferry, we had a cocktail on the beach and just relaxed.  I think it was good for Stud to actually sit and do nothing after a stressful first week in the ER.  Our ferry back was during the sunset, it was an excellent way to finish a great day on Block Island.  I think we will be back for sure!