It was another grey and rainy day, so Henry and I decided to head off into town to spend the morning at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. We love aquariums, and take every opportunity to visit one together. It's tradition.

Located in the shadow of the Yaquina Bay Bridge, we parked at the Aquarium and jogged with hoods up to the entrance to avoid the drizzle.

The aquarium was beautiful and well laid out, both inside and outside. We hadn't really anticipated a large portion of the exhibits being outside in the rain! 

We learned that the aquarium had been the original home of Keiko, the orca and star of the Disney movie Free Willie. He lived there for two years until 1998 when he was shipped back to Iceland where he was later released into the ocean.

​We did not see any whales in the aquarium and for that we were thankful.  The exhibits looked clean and the marine mammals appeared happy and well cared for. We enjoyed the outdoor exhibits, especially watching the otters swimming together, rolling around in the water and watching us right back.  

In the walk-through aviary we heard the puffins, with their expressive macaroni eyebrows, singing to each other, pottering about with their comical gait, and stretching their wings. Puffins are just born to stand out. We also saw a variety of oystercatchers, guillemots and murres flying freely inside the netted tent.

Entering the indoor galleries we found ourselves in a deep, dark underwater world filled with exhibitions of ethereal jellies, leggy stars, pink crabs, horses with curly tails and both local and brightly colored, exotic fish. We progressed in the semi darkness to an huge acrylic underwater tunnel titled Passages of the Deep where we enjoyed a 360 degree view of sharks, eels, rays, skates and a rather nosy grouper.

We smiled at the Pacific Banana Slug that had been elevated to the title of ambassador at the aquarium.

There was a lot of information and many exhibits on the conservation and I read as much as Henry would allow.

At the end we visited the aquarium shop and bought a souvenir T-Shirt for Kim that had a picture of a fish on the front with the word 'Salty.'

Nice. 

Definitely worth a visit.

On the way back from Depoe Bay, we took a back road to Cape Foulweather. I just love that name. It sounds like a Rik Mayall superhero, right?

The towering basalt cliff jutting out into the Pacific Ocean was actually named by Captain James Cook on his third voyage around the world. He discovered it on March 7, 1778. The weather was particularly vile that day with winds of over 100mph, which are not uncommon in the area.

Captain Cook's March 7, 1778 journal reads:-

A northeast facing promontory with a small visitor center at the top called The Lookout, was a perfect place to whale watch. Using their binoculars and looking out of the huge windows at the back of the building, with a view to die for, we finally got to see some gray whales on their migratory journey. Spectacular!

Depoe Bay is advertised as the World's Smallest Harbor so I immediately had to quibble with that title as I have personally seen much smaller harbors, both natural and man-made in Cornwall, England; Mousehole, Port Isaac,  Charlestown for starters.

It was certainly a quaint little fishing town. We hoped Depoe Bay's other title, the Whale Watching Capital of Oregon, would live up to its name. As we drove in to town over the arched concrete bridge we immediately saw the whitewashed, one and half story structure that was home to the Whale Watching Center. Located right on the edge of the ocean, perched on the rocky shoreline, almost like the base of a lighthouse, it had huge windows in the large octagonal observation room and an open air observation deck on the roof,  facing out towards the ocean, allowing visitors to comfortably observe the migratory journeys of passing whales directly from the shore. 

We parked facing the ocean and I immediately made my way to the Whale Watching Center to use the toilet. Henry commented once again that I have the bladder of a hamster.

Staffed with knowledgeable volunteers, complimentary binoculars and loads of information about whales and other marine mammals, I took some time staring out to sea, scanning for whales. None had been seen that morning. A white board with local weather, tide times and updates on what had been recently spotted, was most useful. 

I learned that from the observation deck, a wide variety of whales had previously been spotted, about 1200 individual sighting per year;  humpback, gray, minke, even orcas and blue whales had been spotted along with an assortment of dolphins, porpoises and of course the more common sea lions.

Unfortunately, we did not see any marine mammals that day.

We cheerfully walked through the town and Kim bought his now famous grey beanie. It rarely leaves his head and is reminiscent of the headgear worn by Joe Pesci in the movie Home Alone. If ever we are invited to a fancy dress party, Kim and Henry could definitely go as the two bandits, Harry and Marv from that movie. Haha!  "Keep the change ya filthy animal!"

There was a variety of souvenir shops, galleries and many whale watching tour outlets. The sea looked pretty choppy and we watched one boat take a good half an hour slopping about from side to side, lurching this way and that, seeming to make no progress at all at one point,  as it made it's way under the bridge, through the narrow channel and finally out to sea.

We decided that we would not go out in a boat. Henry is afraid of sharks anyway. Cue the Jaws music!

The best part of the day was when we stopped for photos at a beautiful overlook. Totally unexpectedly and literally out of the blue, a humpback whale leaped out of the ocean in a full breach, making the most enormous splash as it broadsided the water in a loud smackdown. We then watched it move steadily northwards, it's fluked tail waving at us, misty sprays of breath snorting from its blowhole like steam from a kettle, and the delightful humping over of the giant leviathan as it dipped and rose in rhythmic waves as it leisurely moved away from us.

This is not my video, but it illustrates the big splash of a breaching humpback!