Miles 4064-4064: Whale Watching and Victoria
We had to get up at 6:30 so we could get to the boat on time. We got breakfast at Starbucks: a sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich. We went to the Prince of Whale’s (I know, too punny) office and boarded the boat. We didn’t see any wildlife for about the first hour while we crossed the Strait of Georgia; I stayed outside for about thirty minutes until the wind became crazy. We saw some harbor seals and bald eagles when we crossed in between the Southern Gulf Islands. We saw a pair of bald eagles on a dead tree a little farther along. We passed by a bird sanctuary where lots of cormorants nested. Fog started to close in after that and before long, you couldn’t see much farther than 100 meters (metric system when in Canada). Because of the fog, the captain said that we had to go straight Victoria and skip the rest of our meandering. However, we got a call from another boat about a pod of transient killer whales and we went to the area. There were a lot of other boats around and at first we couldn’t see anything around them. Then we saw some fins come around another boat and we thought they were dolphins (we were right in a way), but then we saw a straight one that looked like a shark fin. Turns out that it was the bull orca, whose fin is a lot straighter, and his pod. Our guides, James and Amy, said that they were chasing a porpoise. I felt bad for the porpoise, who never had a chance, but it’s the circle of life, natural selection, whatever you want to call it; it was natural, supposed to happen. Eventually they came closer to our boat and I counted five in the pod. There was one bull, one cow, two smaller orcas (you can’t tell by the fin until they’re grown), and one calf. The calf was about the size of a small dog and stayed next to its mother the whole time. It looked like a stuffed animal; it was so cute!! You couldn’t really see much through the water until they came right up to our boat!!!! I never saw the porpoise, but that was okay. It was the most amazing, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. One of the orcas came right within inches of the side of our boat. We stayed for about half an hour and then went into Victoria.
We checked in at the hotel, the Swan Inn and Brewery, and went to lunch at John’s Place. I got a Greek vegetable and bean soup with feta cheese. We walked downtown by the harbor and looked in a few shops. We got stickers for trunks and the car-top carrier. It started raining and the boys went back to the hotel. I went through shops with Mom, mostly clothing stores. We came back to the hotel and watched the beginning of the Espy’s. We went to dinner at Ferris’ Grill and Garden Patio. We got whipped ricotta to start, with bread and honey. I split jambalaya with Dad and it was delicious. I’ve always wanted to try it since we were in New Orleans, but it has been spicy every we’ve went. I was so glad to finally find one that wasn’t and it was everything that I expected. We went back to the hotel and went to bed before journalling or blogging.
“No aquarium, no tank in a marine land, however spacious it may be, can begin to duplicate the beauty of the sea.”