The day began without expectations. Anne and I walked the dogs in the morning to the ocean–we are lucky we can do that. After ten minutes we realized there were an unusual number of humpback whales feasting near shore. A woman who has lived in Carmel for 70 years said she’d never seen anything like it. Over the next eight hours we witnessed scores of whales diving for food, presumably, sardines, anchovies and krill. At one point we saw whales come within 25-feet of the beach. Dolphins, seals, otters swam along side the whales while pelicans and other birds hovered nearby. Boats and kayakers got close up. Our photos were taken from the “street” and the beach. Anne scored the winner–a humpback in full breach (jumping completely out of the water). And all day long people exclaimed that they had never seen anything like this before–we certainly concurred.