An Adventurous Day on The Water

Every day that we leave the dock, we are never sure of what we will see and so it was this afternoon when we headed out under an overcast sky that allowed not a single ray of sunshine. The sea was calm, and our tour amongst the Stephenson Islets was delightful as we spent time watching the Harbour seals where numerous mothers and their pups were hauled out relaxed and resting on rocky outcrops.

Dall's porpoises seemed to be everywhere today, and at one point, they joined us at the bow of our boat as we travelled along. It was as though in play, and our passengers enjoyed the thrill of seeing their sleek black and white bodies swimming alongside and porpoising ahead of us. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, they peeled away and disappeared! We saw them again swimming with two Humpback whales, they were busily darting back and forth around them and seemed to be gleefully harassing the whales while showing no fear of them. It was with much interest that we sat watching the porpoises interaction with the whales who themselves were entirely focussed on foraging and paid little attention to the pesky porpoises! We saw a third Humpback whale before we headed out into Queen Charlotte Strait to look for orcas that had been reported to us by another vessel. 

Leaving Blackfish Sound and heading north, we noticed the wind had come up, and the air was cold. Dull lighting, wind and choppy waters made difficult our search for the orcas, but then, at last, we found them much to the excitement of everyone onboard. And while our time with them was brief and there was not an opportunity for Jon (our skipper) to obtain photos of them, it was indeed a thrill, seeing the group of Biggs Transient orcas, the T46c's. It was also an opportunity we would have missed if we had not lingered longer on our tour in the hope that we would see them. It was a fabulous ending to another day of viewing in the wild, all that we saw, including marine mammals, those big and small!