Lynn and Pat's Excellent Adventure (LynnK)

Patricia Potter, Master and Commander, sets out in search of the Great Beast, aka the Grey Whale, and not for the first time. A year ago, she and Tara braved the waves aboard this same vessel as rain and wind whipped about them. Nary a whale did they see.

Which is why the Dynamic Duo (me a weak substitute for the fearless Tara) came aboard in the face of a threatening storm. Pat Wants to See a Whale. She has seen whales before, but not here in San Diego. And Pat never gives up.

She’s here for a writers retreat, which will formally commence this evening. By formally, I mean we’ll probably start feeling guilty for not doing anything writing-related. This group always defaults to fun.

Our get-togethers follow a familiar path. First stop: Wine. Marginally decent wine, because Pat, Alicia, and I have—shall we say?—undiscriminating palates. The quality will soar when Carol arrives with selections from her excellent cellar.



Next stop: Food. Pat likes to cook, so here she is—after ten hours of traveling—fixin’ up some burgers. Last night we made our traditional visit to an Irish pub for onion rings, fish ‘n’ chips, and other deep-fried goodies. And yes, we will commence our diets next week.

Constantly: Talk. Hours and hours of talk. That’s what comes of having interesting (and interested) friends. We never run out of topics or things to say.

Occasionally: Excursions. Which is how Pat and I found ourselves aboard the whale boat. Alicia, who gets seasick, wisely gave it a pass. And speaking of passes, we had two freebies because Pat and Tara failed to see whales last year.

You guessed it. No whales this year, either. Just four hours of swells and troughs that had us lurching across the decks and hanging on to the railings with death grips. Thank God for Dramamine.

Did we have fun? Sure. We don’t believe in not having fun, especially when things don’t go our way. We just laugh and enjoy ourselves.

We learned that whales, dolphins and porpoises are closely related descendants of land mammals (much like hippos) who returned to the ocean about three million years ago.

“What’s the difference between dolphins and porpoises?” asked Pat. Not hardly any, it turns out, and most distinctions are biological and invisible to us. But it seems that porpoises have spade-shaped teeth and dolphins have pointy teeth. Good to know!

As we staggered off the boat, each of us holding a free pass for yet another whale-seeking voyage, Pat handed me her ticket and confided, sotto voce, that she would not be repeating this particular adventure.

Me, neither!