53 ... 52 ...

The other day we took a morning to ourselves and headed for Hermanus - the drive follows the coast, and the destination lures you with whale watching. The season is just ending, so we were hoping to catch a glimpse of one or two.

We had just about one hour exactly to spend in Hermanus and I was so excited to soak up the time just staring out into the ocean for any glimpses. Then Jason just casually drove through town, passing numerous good options to stop, park, and let me go play ... but nooo, he wanted to "see the town". So, as a total and complete brat, I started to count down the minutes I was losing of whale watching ... 53 ... 52 ... then he turns AWAY from the beach (I thought to look at a golf course), and then I was of course convinced he didn't care at all that "my time" was now dwindling into the 40s. Oh my goodness, I am such a brat - how does he put up with me?

Turns out he wasn't pulling up to a golf course, nor were my minutes ticking away quite as fast as I had thought. He had booked us for a horseback trip along the beach (AH, DREAM to ride in the waves finally come true!) - and yes, for whale watching from horseback. Who thinks of those two things going together? Only a man who knows his wife's heart and figures out a creative way to match two things at once. And we had the whole day - he had prearranged it with the people I thought we were hurrying back to meet up with. I responded with that lovely stunned silence when you feel about as stupid as you should.

At any rate, it was simply gorgeous. The wind died down just enough for us to spend most of the ride out on the sand (THANK YOU, LORD - the wind seriously was heavy all day except those two hours), and there were SO MANY whales! They were a bit lazy that day, our guide said, but they were still there, and we could still see them. I'm used to whale watching meaning you'll be lucky to see a few ... but there were at least 10 you could pick out at any moment, just past the breakers. Nearly every direction you looked you could see one - and this is at the LOW end of the whale season. Just near the end of our ride, one a ways off jumped for us a few times ... yay.