Family Summer Vacation, Part 5 (final): River & Ocean

While the six of us went to church in Crescent City on Sunday, Jotham, Dana, Cassie, Joanna, & Justin went on a jetboat tour of the Klamath River while Damon's dad, Craig stayed home with Braden (too little).  They raved so much about the trip that we decided to go on Tuesday.  (Jotham and Dana had to head back to work and left Tuesday morning, and the rest of us stayed until Wednesday.)  Craig came with us on the tour while Joanna & Justin stayed home with Holly.

The tour was on a 36-passenger boat, although we probably only had about 20 people on our tour.  Adah was our main photographer.

The boat tour took us long the Klamath River . . .

 

. . . to its mouth at the Pacific Ocean.  We saw seals popping their heads out of the water here.  You can just barely see one at the bottom right corner of this photo.  Our guide told us that Great White Sharks sometimes come up the river here.  Damon's not so sure he would have kayaked by our rental house--which we passed on the tour, where we waved at Joanna, Justin, and Holly--if he had known that.

After viewing the ocean, we turned around and headed back up the river.  The boat captain and his partner had an amazing ability to spot wildlife on the shores and in the tree tops.  Here you see the first of two black bears we spotted on the tour.  We saw these across the river from the house, but this view was much closer.  He eyed us for awhile before going back into the forest.  The guides also spotted lots of birds, such as blue herons, bald eagles, osprey, ducks, and other kinds we don't even remember.

By far, the coolest wildlife we saw--and just about my favorite part of our whole vacation--was the mother gray whale and her baby!  They had swum several miles up the river a few weeks earlier and we had actually watched them from the shore our first full day in Klamath.  But on the jetboat tour we got an up close and personal view.

See the spout?  I took these photos since they were on my side of the boat.  There was no zooming.

Now you can see the mother behind us.  This was just moments before she swam right under our boat.  Seriously.  We lingered in this area of the river with engine basically idling while we gawked at the whales swimming around us and coming up for air occasionally, before moving on.  As we moved out under the Hwy 101 bridge, our guide told us that moments before he had looked behind him (his spot was on a sort of platform at the rear [stern] of the boat) and seen the the mother's tale--wider than our boat--just behind him.  That meant her body was going directly under it.  Whoa.

 

After whale watching, we moved on up the river at a fairly steady pace, stopping occasionally for wildlife spottings and stories about the local history.  Once we reached our turn-around point, which I think was about 45 miles upriver, the speed picked up considerably for the return trip.  We got to do some fun spins and rapid, splash-making stops, but mostly we just sped back to the dock.  We'd been enjoying warm sunny weather for much of the tour, but hit clouds as we went further up the river.  The ride back was super windy and chilly.  I had to keep adjusting my barrettes to keep my hair under my hood and out of my face.  We were grateful for the heavy blankets provided.  Overall, it was a pretty amazing tour.

That afternoon we caravanned with Damon's parents and brother on a scenic drive to an amazing coastal view.  It was a gorgeous day and an excellent way to end our vacation.  The next morning we headed for home.