Day 91, Wednesday, September 14

Spent this morning taking a shoreline hike along the rocks South of my campsite. The rocks here are jet black and extremely jagged and geometrical in nature. Unlike any rocks I’ve ever seen. They make for easy climbing but would make for a treacherous fall or collision were you in a boat. They’d literally shred any boat which rubbed against them.
This afternoon I went whale watching with a group of about 10 people. The boats the company uses are open bow, hard bottom Zodiacs with a pair of 200 hp motors out back. The ride out into the ocean was a blast (I was of course sitting in the very front of the boat because the ride would be roughest there) and we saw numerous hump back whales. Nearly all of them were too far away to get great pictures of, especially from a rocking boat, but they were all definitely close enough to be thrilling! My benchmate (an acceptable word, right?) was a girl named Kirsten who was up here from San Francisco with her family which was up from Seattle. Kirsten turned out to be a fascinating companion because she’s been all over the world hiking and camping. From Spain to Venezuela, Tibet to China, and throughout much of Canada and the US. She invited me to give here a call when I find myself down in San Francisco and I’ll definitely take her up on that offer!