Whales!

This post is being written for Mrs. Witchers first grade class in Watertown, South Dakota. Hi to all the first graders and I hope you enjoy the pictures. If you click on the picture it will enlarge (get bigger) and you can see the whales a little better. We got to see a mother whale and her baby. It was pretty cool. The Whales are only in Mexico during the winter time. They arrived a few weeks ago and will stay here until things warm up in the United States.

In this picture the mom showed her tail. This means that they were going down deep and probably wouldn't come up for another 45 minutes.
Here is Hannah playing with the snorkeling equipment.

I heard that you guys learned about turtles yesterday. Here is a picture of Josiah cheering on his little turtle. After the turtles hatch the marine biologists keep the turtles for a few days so that they can grow stronger and have a better survival rate. When they are strong enough they are released into the ocean. They are released at sunset because there are less predators out. The conservationists draw a line in the sand and expain that people are not allowed to cross that line. They then have you rub your hands in the sand (I think so that anything on your hands - germs, oils etc. wont hurt the turtles). After that they pass the turtles out to anyone that wants to release one. Then the turtles are layed down on the sand and they head to the ocean. It's really cool because the turtles have an instinct to head to the ocean so even if you face your tutle away from the ocean he/she will turn itself around and head to the water.
Hope you enjoyed. Have a great Christmas vacation and be nice to Mrs. Witcher!!