Tell Us Your Stories!

It is said that "everyone has a story". When I moved to California, it was the pioneer stories that captivated me, such as: "I packed up my old car and drove alone from Philadelphia...slept in the car on the way...found an apartment, a roommate and a job through Craigslist...all within a week!" It never fails to interest me how people made the decision to leave everything behind for a fresh start. Imagination and courage, I figure, are the prime ingredients that fuel these personal odysseys. Oh, the wonderful stories I've heard, the wonderful people I've met in California.


Starting with the first SF Bay Whale Watching trip I took, the personal stories kept coming - this time stories from fellow passengers about what brought them aboard that day. Lots of locals were ebullient about finally, after all those years nearby, seeing the underside of the Golden Gate Bridge, or seeing those spooky Farallon Islands that they'd only glimpsed on a rare fog-less day (..ah ha - so they are real and not a myth!"). As Verne Bryant always says: "the people who come on a whale watching trip are always interesting, special people".

There was that four-generations-strong family party that thought a celebration at sea was the best way to honor their grandfather's 75th birthday. What more could they give him than time spent all together? Add some Humpback Whales and that was one heck of a party!


Then there was our-now-dear-friend, Verna, who came aboard alone at age 90, to finally see the Farallones. Verna had a weekly habit of walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, where she watched all the ships and sailboats heading out to sea. One day she made up her mind to find out for herself what salt spray felt like on her face...what dolphins looked like outside of an aquarium, what whales looked like in the wild. Verna sat in the bow for the whole trip; the smile never left her face.


Each trip has out-of-towners finally experiencing the Pacific Ocean and it's marine life, a dream come true, after a lifetime of seeing San Francisco Bay and ocean images on TV and in movies. Birthday, anniversary, college reunion celebrants; rendezvous-ing far flung friends; free trip contest winners; gift certificate recipients ('best gift I ever got!"); honeymooners from all over the world; bird watchers who travel huge distances to see the vast bird colonies at the Farallones; and adventures who tick off another stop on their world-wide traverse to see each ocean's species of whales; all these people have a story worth sharing and hearing.



So please continue to share your stories with us - both personally on board, and afterwards in an email to Verne Bryant at SF Bay Whale Watching. It might be hard to beat the recent story about the Oregon high school students and their enthusiastic science teacher who traveled all night by bus to join an SF Bay Whale Watching trip, saw whales, dolphins, sea lions, seals, sea nettles, sea birds, AND the Golden Gate Bride, and then loaded back onto the bus for home ... to tell their stories, no doubt.

Text by Kathleen Jacques.