The Purple Penguin

Just back from the best meal we’ve had all trip – ate at the Indigo Grill, which appears to be part of a series of places.  But the place acts like a small independent and the service and food were excellent. We left almost too full to walk! Definitely recommended as a great place to eat in San Diego.

We were up a bit later than usual and once up and sorted out to the whale watching place, San Diego Harbor Excursion. We had booked on the whale watching tour but switched it yesterday to the nature cruise. So we collected our boarding passes and then went into their cafe and had a huge breakfast. Thought we were just getting something light but it turned out to be a lot of food! Then onto the boat and off to look at wildlife.

It was more an extended harbour cruise, with lots of information about the city and the naval base then information about the islands, Islas Los Coronados, with the wildlife being an extra. But we saw loads and Joe got tons of photos. We’ll sit down and look through them to identify some of what we spotted. But we know we saw: brown pelicans, brown boobies, gulls (lots of gulls), blue heron, oyster catchers, American oyster catcher, sea lions, elephant seals, harbour seals, common dolphin and white sided dolphins. Got all the way out and headed back and didn’t see a single dolphin or whale. We got the common dolphins for a bit then a couple of other boats found whales, so we headed that way and got our first look at a grey whale. Watched it for a while, then headed into harbour as we were running late. Those of us who stayed on the bow spotted another whale and got to see it spout a few times. Then we ran into the pod of white sided dolphins. So it was an excellent trip with lots of interesting information. We were quite late getting back but as we didn’t have anything else planned we didn’t mind. It was well worth going!

We dumped our stuff in our room and headed out for dinner as we were starving. We are now too full to move and Joe is going to check his photos while watching football (we’ve been watching football all the time).