Ocean | Meet Me In Paradise

Last summer I had the pleasure of taking a trip down to Ecuador with BaDing* and his family. His uncle thought it would be an amazing experience to go whale watching. I couldn’t agree more, but as for the rest of the family, they weren’t too sure. I was the definition of “ignorance is bliss,” because I had no idea what I was in store for or why the rest of the family was so nervous. When we arrived at the beach (not at all trying to sound high maintenance,) I was expecting a long dock leading out to a yacht. I don’t know what I was thinking. Lets just say this was no yacht. Once walking into the ocean to load ourselves into the boat (that had pulled up to shallow waters), we took off hitting the waves and flying high. It was a fairly overcast day, and the water was rough to say the least. Our lovely tour guides were telling us all the safety precautions, what to expect once we arrive at the viewing site, and what we should or shouldn’t be doing. Luckily for me, this entire speech was in spanish, which I know about 2 words of. After an extremely rocky boat ride we arrive. Unfortunately, multiple passengers got sea sick, and others were crying… it was a mess. I felt so awful for them, but I still needed to see these whales!

Next thing you know the whales are leaping out of the water so close they seem to be in arms reach! There were so many of them. It was literally one of the most amazing things I have every seen. It is unreal to think there is an entire world under the ocean that I know so little about, and that an animal so big and strong could be swimming around right beneath my boat! BaDing* translated that the tour guide/boat driver was asking if anyone wanted to get a closer look at the front of the boat, and I obviously jumped up, but I didn’t understand anything he was saying about how to balance myself by holding a rope, and I almost went flying off the edge (no big deal.) The view was worth it though. We only had a short time before they took us to go take a dip in the water and see a few more sites, but this was undoubtably one of my favorite parts of the trip.

None of these pictures do justice to what we saw that day. The rocking of the boat and the time the camera took to flash made it almost impossible to get a good shot, but I still think these pictures are worth 1000 words. I will spare you the pictures of the throwing up and crying!