Well, Russ had plans for the afternoon, so he decided to go back to the hotel. I went ahead with the trip, even though it was far from what we'd planned. The first stop was Huntington Beach - Surf City. The US Open of surfing had just finished there, and we had about a half-hour stop. So I took some photos.
Then on to Newport Beach. The driver showed me where to check in for the whale-watching and gave me his cell phone number to call when I was done, so we could figure out when he would meet me. The whale-watching people wanted some kind of card from the tour people. So I hurried back to the bus, which was on a 10-minute stop. The driver had no idea what they wanted, but filled in the slip I had gotten from the concierge and gave me a phone number to pass on if the whale-watching people had any trouble. They looked at the numbers he'd filled in and told me I was way over-charged, and lent me binoculars instead of making me rent them. I was almost 2 hours early for the noon trip. We didn't see any whales, but did see the expected pods of dolphins:
The surprise was the sea lions. They were laying in a pile on someone's boat dock on the way out, and then we saw this pile on the buoy on the way back into the harbor.
Anyway, I thought I might have to wait another 2 hours to get back on the bus. But when I called, the driver said he was headed back, so if I would spend $1 to take the ferry across, he'd pick me up on the way instead. I was glad to get back earlier. And then I could have taken the ferry for free - apparently the crew thought I was part of a different group.
So it ended up being an ok day for me. I did stop to let the concierge know about the problems, though.
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