South Hampton, NH with Mark

Mark got here after four scenic days on the road from Minnesota and we started off by going to the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival. This is the sand sculpture that welcomed the thousands of visitors on the first sunny day after three days of rain.








We ate our way through the festival. What else would you do? We had steamed lobster, buttered lobster on a roll, swordfish on a stick, bacon wrapped scallops, a five inch high stack of thinly sliced curly fries, lobster chowder, clam chowder, clam cakes, crab rangoons (clab with cream cheese in a fried wonton), cold lobster claw, coconut shrimp, and a fruit cup!


We were full, so Mitch punched Rye Harbor into the GPS to see where it would take us and the next thing we knew we were buying tickets for a whale watching cruise.

So about 12 miles out into the Atlantic we found this pod of dolphins playing and having fun. Not to shabby.











And then we continued out to about 20 miles and saw some "blows" out a ways and I figured that's it for whales. Our onboard whale expert said they were fin whales, the second largest whales about 70-80 feet long. Very impressive.

And then the show began. Let me introduce you to Tigris, a humpback whale that decided to check out the people on the boat and spent the next 40 minutes right next to the boat spouting, roaring, and going from one side of the boat to the other to entertain us. Our expert said in her 16 years she has seen this behavior only a couple of times before. I've got a couple of great videos I'll post when I have good internet. The whale watching trip lasted 5 1/2 hours! We ended the day eating more seafood!