{"id":165,"date":"2007-03-28T12:31:45","date_gmt":"2007-03-28T20:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/?p=165"},"modified":"2007-03-28T21:04:02","modified_gmt":"2007-03-29T05:04:02","slug":"a-whale-of-a-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/?p=165","title":{"rendered":"A whale of a place"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

…listen<\/font><\/a>
\n…info about the music<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

No color correction. It really IS this blue.<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

The Point Dume Headlands. A magical spot, walking distance from Paradise Cove at low tide, or a spontaneous side trip when the car has a mind of its own heading back from the post office a mile up the road. <\/p>\n

Charles and I try to break up our work afternoons during the week with a stroll amidst nature’s joy and sanity, and yesterday it was Destination: Whale Watch. My friend and fellow Cove blogeressa Veronique de Turenne <\/font><\/b><\/a> had told me a couple days earlier that she witnessed 12 gorgeous cetaceans hugging the shoreline, protecting their newborns while trudging up the coast on their many-thousand mile odyssey. What a sight.<\/p>\n

Inspired, we went to the best seat in the house at the very tip of the Santa Monica Bay: Point Dume. The peninsula juts out in glee for visitors and in peril for the boats caught unawares by sharp rocks lurking just below the waterline. With a simple combination of a narrow boardwalk and sandy dunes, this protected land jealously shares space encroached upon by mansions lining the cliff of the Malibu Riviera.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We waited.
\nWe watched.
\nTwo mourning doves.
\nThree tiny lizards.
\nFour adorable squirrels.
\nNo whales.<\/p>\n

Where’d they go? Did the Union give them a lunch break and no one informed us? Are they striking, in protest of the commercial squid boats whose flood lights lure the cephalopods and deplete the whales’ food source? Or maybe they knew I had my camera poised to capture their grace, and like the Amish, didn’t want their souls stolen. <\/p>\n

Lack of exceptionally large mammals not withstanding, everything else that we did see was nothing short of stunning.
\nHow lucky, lucky, lucky, to be able to step outside and experience this. No matter how many years I’ve viewed these same expanses, never have I taken them for granted. It’s always a whale of a time.<\/p>\n

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