Chetco River (Brookings, Oregon)

Another leg down and I'm finally out of California! That is one LONG state.
I got up fairly early in Humboldt today and headed out. The swells were still pretty big but spaced out and with no wind so it was a fairly nice ride. I was just happy to have a “boring” day at sea!
About mid morning I was talking on the phone to Lara (isn’t technology great?) and I notice a whale spout ahead. Pretty soon I caught up to them and it turned out to be a mother and calf humpback and they started jumping about 300 yards off to the side of the boat. First the baby would jump (and just about completely clear the water) and then the mother would jump (HUGE splash). They did this off and on for about 5 minutes (a total of about 15 jumps!).
Then a couple of hours later I noticed a flurry in the water ahead and realized it was a school of baitfish being chased by something. That is normally fish (tuna, salmon, etc.) so I got out the binoculars to see if I could figure out what it was. Suddenly this ENORMOUS head popped out of the water….followed immediately by the rest of the whale! This happened less than 200 feet from the side of the boat and startled me so badly that I almost dropped the binoculars! It was a very “National Geographic” moment!
It’s times like that when it is really nice to have a second person on board to take pictures!
When I finally made it into Chetco River (Brookings, Oregon), I eased up to the transient dock and two nice Coast Guard noncoms helped me with my lines and then asked if they could board and inspect the boat (like I’m going to say “no?”). This was our first boarding and it was completely painless…especially the part about “no violations!”
Now if the weather will just hold….