Day 4 - Whale Watching and hockey game

Day 4 was a Tuesday. I had just spent the night in Monterey. I had to find the fisherman's wharf after breakfast, so that I could go whale watching. I had never been whale watching, so it was a neat experience. First, I should mention that it was a cold experience. After boating for about an hour, the wind becomes very cold for nearly anyone, even a Canadian like myself. I definitely recommend a jacket, mittens, scarves, and tuques if needed, even in California.

We saw two humpback whales. There was a sea lion that found our boat and would pop his head out of the water every once and awhile to throw the group off. We kept thinking it might be a whale since the whales would seem to pop up out of anywhere.

The thing about whale watching is that whales can stay under water for about 6-8 minutes at a time. It seemed like our whales were feeding, so they would be up for a minute or two then swim back down to the ocean floor to get some grub. It was a tricky experience because you never knew where they would pop back up. We were lucky once and they came up pretty much right next to our boat. I tried to snap as many pictures as I could, but its difficult when everyone on the boat is trying to do the same thing.

Whale watching was a lot of fun, but I had bigger plans for Tuesday night. I had to drive back to San Jose to watch Dany Heatley's first game against his former club, my Ottawa Senators.

We got to HP Pavilion pretty early as I was excited for my chance to heckle Mr. Heatley. As I walked around the Shark tank, I noticed that there was a lot of teal and black jerseys. I was just surprised that there were so many dedicated Sharks fans in California. I didn't think hockey would necessarily be all that popular. The reason I noticed this was two fold. First, there were an abnormal amount of people with Jerseys and second, I was looking for people with Sens jerseys on.

I think in the night, I counted about 20 jerseys or tshirts from Sens fans. I didn't think that was too bad considering we were in California. One guy was following the Sens on their west coast trip and some others were just in the area by coincidence.

Our seats were in the nosebleeds. The seats were good, but they were high up. We were the second row from the top of the building. We sat next to some season ticket holders, and it didn't take them long to question why I was at the game wearing my Sens gear.

These season ticket holders were great guys. They knew more about hockey than I would have given them credit for. In fact, one of the guys was wondering if Ottawa was going to get a CFL franchise back. He said he was a sports memorabilia collector and only had a Renegades Tshirt. He knew about the Hull Olympiques are now the Gatineau Olympiques, and many other things that I would not expect from someone from San Jose.

Impressed by their hockey knowledge, I didn't waste any time to let my feelings be known about Dany Heatley. The guys around me seemed to understand my feelings and just let me jeer away without any scowls, dirty looks, or smart-ass comments in return. In fact, they seemed to be jealous that we now had Jonathan Cheechoo on our team. Cheechoo was very respected by the fans in San Jose. I would say more respected than Michalek. (We traded Heatley for Cheechoo, Michalek and a 2nd round pick. Michalek has been tearing it up for Ottawa, while Cheechoo has had a slow start) All in all, I had a great night. I booed Heatley everytime he touched the puck, and I got to experience hockey in California. The bad part was that the Sens lost to San Jose that night 5-2.