I'll Bet You Thought I Was Done With Beach Photos ...Ha! I'm Just Gettin' Started!!

The Packer fan finds a starfish. On a side note, Moira DID have a little packers.com withdrawal symptoms on our vacation. No internet available or allowed on this trip. It's a good thing the whole Brett ordeal started when we got back! Oh, speaking of Brett....someone asked Mike if he was Brett Favre. Now, if you know Mike, he is several inches shorter than Brett and really doesn't look anything like him, other than they are both starting to gray and have similar coloring. But he was sitting in our car, so his height wasn't apparent. He happened to mention to this local man that he was from Green Bay and the man asked him if he was Brett. He was completely serious. It was hilarious! The kids joked about that all week.




Our seven blessings!



Erin kicks back

These steps that we walked up and down to get to the beach allowed us to get our workout in!


A nice view of the beach, which we often had to ourselves.



Teresa gets buried

Crabs

One morning we found these four large crabs on the beach, upside down. I'm not sure why they were upside down but it was quite interesting and we didn't know if they were sick, washed up with the tide, or maybe even left over from some one's crab boil from the night before. Lucky them!

After observing them for awhile we thought it was time to leave them alone. Bridget had the job of returning them to where we found them, but she didn't want to touch them. She figured out a way to take her little babies home.

More Pictures in Provincetown

Looking for more hermit crabs...




Erin's dreaming of whales

Hurry, don't miss the boat!

Whale Watching

When Mike and I lived on the east coast, we'd take our parents, siblings, friends or anyone else who would come to visit us, on a whale watching trip. These trips were some of our favorite memories, so naturally, we couldn't wait to take the kids for the same experience. We drove to the very end of Cape Cod to a little town called Provincetown. Why Provincetown? Because just off the coast of this town is a National Marine Sanctuary comprised of Stellwagon Bank (and a couple other smaller banks) where the whales feed. There are only 13 marine sanctuaries like this in the world. It is really amazing to get in a boat and go about 20 minutes out into the ocean to see these whales. The best way I can describe the experience of seeing whales at Stellwagon Bank is to compare it to Wisconsin. In WI, you'd go out to a pasture and see cows. At SB, you go out and see whales....it's that predictable! And you don't just see a couple, you can see dozens! I think we saw about twenty. There are three species of whale found in the waters of SB: humpback, fin back and minke. The whales feed on the small fish, which feed on the many nutrients and tiny sea plankton. We were able to observe these whales feeding, coming up for air, playing and communicating with each other. We also had the unique experience of witnessing a humpback whale being rescued from fishing nets, and a baby calf swimming along side its mother. Now, having said all that, I also have to say that the pictures just don't compare to being there in person. You cannot hear the sounds, see their movements, or compare their size to the boat or the vast ocean. But, we'll post a few anyway!


The boat docking at Provincetown



Getting ready to see some whales...let's go!


Inside the cabin



Out at sea, starting to look for whales.






OK, enough already! On to the whales pictures...


Teresa and Aidan spot their first whale spout!

And we get a little closer....it's a fin back whale, which gets up to 90 feet long.


Here is a mother humpback whale with it calf. The mother is feeding with her mouth open and the baby is closest to the boat. This calf was just learning how to eat fish, but was primarily still nursing. The seagulls are surrounding the mother, trying to get a few fish as well.
The next series of pictures shows a closer view of the humpback feeding. Here's an FYI from the website: The humpback species uses a distinct technique called "bubble net feeding." The humpback whale, working alone or with others, may circle a school of small fish such as sand lance or herring. At depth, the whale will release a stream of bubbles that will rise to the surface like a fence around the massed fish. That same whale or a partner will move up through the middle of the confused school with its mouth wide open, capturing large quantities of prey in one mouthful.
Out on the water, the first thing you look for is a greenish white patch on the surface, just like we captured here. Usually the seagulls are there as well. This green patch is the top of the "bubble net" that the whale has created.
Soon the humpback breaks thru the water, with its mouth wide open, swallowing a whole school of fish.


A humpback is a baleen whale, meaning it does not have teeth, but rather rows of baleen plates that sift out the fish and squeeze the water back out.
After a feed it dives back down. I believe this is the calf's tail.

So, there you have it! Isn't that COOL?!

More Random Beach Photos

(Vacation pictures continued...)Well, did I mention that we took a lot of pictures?! We are going to continue posting because as I mentioned, this is our family scrap book and we want to hold on to these memories. Sorry if you're visiting our blog and getting an overdose of pictures :)














Thankfully, we had this great outdoor shower that we could use after the beach!!!

Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower

Manomet Beach is very close to Plymouth, so we took a quick drive to see Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. The little viewing bridge that overlooks the "rock" where the Pilgrims landed was being remodeled, so we had to view that from a distance. It was interesting for the kids to see the replica of the Mayflower after reading so much about it in American history. It was smaller than they expected!