Spring Training Fish Tale?

Hello again everyone from the tropical paradise of Hawaii! I heard from my intrepid partner in crime Fred Owens that we had an earthquake here. Hmmm, no one here seemed to notice (and the wonderful Internet service we have here would make it challenging to verify)!

Speaking of challenging to verify, all my work on these challenging to verify spring training claims led me to believe that you guys (editor’s note: Bob uses “guys” to mean both ladies and gentlemen; Also, Bob is the editor LOL!) might be interested in a “fish story” of my own. I trust you all know what a “fish story” is, right? You know, one of those stories that seem to get a little better with each telling or each beer, whichever comes first, so that finally a minnow caught by the angler resembles a whale? Well, here’s my spring training from Hawaii fish story (complete with a picture that would ruin the story if I posted it here):

My wife has always wanted to come to Hawaii in February so that she can go whale watching before the whales head back “North to Alaska”. Me, I prefer coming in the summer or fall so that I can go marlin fishing. Being as this is February and we are in Alaska, I guess you can figure out who won that discussion. Anyway, we went out on the boat to find us some whales! We wandered around for a couple of hours, and we even saw a few, but at a distance. One of the whales we saw, according to our “guide”/drink server, was just a baby, probably only weighing a few hundred pounds. He said that the mother had to be close by, since they were very protective of their young. He also said that by law we couldn’t get any closer to the whale. He did add, though, that since the whales couldn’t read the signs saying they couldn’t get closer, the baby might come closer on its own (I never was clear on whether it was only the baby whales who couldn’t read; I’ll follow up on that one later). Anyway, we were just about to move on when all of a sudden the boat rocked violently on its side! Apparently the baby had gotten too close to the boat for its mother’s comfort and she decided to warn the boat away the best way she knew how! It came up literally within twenty feet of the boat and arose almost full out of the water! Being the fearless reporter I am (OK, I couldn’t figure out a way to run across the ocean to get away!), I even got a shot of the mother. Now, it had already started its descent, but I think you can get a pretty good idea of what we all saw. These things are massive! I don’t know if any of the detail will show in this shot, but you can even see the skin imperfections of the mother and the barnacle-like creatures that live on her skin in the original. (If you’re interested in an original of the picture, say so in a response to this post and leave a valid email address and I’ll be happy to send you an original JPG at full resolution).

Now that you’ve seen and heard my story, is it more or less believable that the stuff coming out of the Braves camp? And would you believe me if I told you that we were going out one more time whale watching before we leave?

Finally, two last notes: 1) I do know that whales aren’t fish, but I still classify this as a fish tale and 2) For any of you that think my wife might always be in charge, let me know if you’re interested and I’ll post a shot of the marlin I landed on a catch and release my last trip to Hawaii.

Aloha and mahalo my friends!