(My solo road trip of western Canada – Tuesday 29th September)
Whale watching wonders is one way of putting this truly incredible experience. A fantastic trip that I can only be grateful for, grateful that I saw what I saw. With tours like this, there are no guarantees, after all, it is nature we are talking about here, nature in their own environment, their own back yard if you will. As a result, several tour companies do offer a certain amount of discount if you do not see any whales during the tour, others offer another tour on the same or another day.
In the photos below, you can see three images where there is a huge group of birds, this was very exciting, as it was usually a good sign that there are whales nearby, we did wait a while but then moved on as the whales had clearly moved on.
Seeing the Killer Whales (Orcas) was breathtaking, there was a large group all moving, incredibly swiftly, in one direction away from Victoria. You may not be able to appreciate, but they were moving very fast, we exercised caution and respect and kept our distance so that we did not disturb them, there was a risk that we would annoy them and in turn, lose the privilege of seeing such beauties in the water. The captain told us that these particular whales he recognised and had not seen this group for at least two years, it was indeed a privilege.
We then moved on and passed by some land where there were hundreds of Sea Lions, some of them were massive, they were very noisy, there was lots of fighting going on as they wrestled for their own piece of land, and OMG, it absolutely stank, with respect to the Sea Lions, the smell for me was repugnant, not for me I’m afraid.
The icing on the cake, the gem of the tour, the part of the tour that was utterly memorable was seeing the Humpback whale, a totally amazing highlight that we were blessed with. We saw one early on, very briefly, but it disappeared, we did wait for it to resurface, but there was no sign so we moved on as we were told that there was some exciting activity happening amongst the Killer Whales. To come across this again was utterly fantastic. To capture what I did was so beautiful, so amazing, they are truly, truly magnificent! After my river and jeep safari in Blue River, I did not think my trip could get any better, this was just a fortunate, timely blessing.
The boat ride back was really nice as I got to see parts of Victoria from the water. The Norwegian Sun cruiser was a treat, the water taxi was really cool, a great view of the government buildings too and the fancy boats, well, they were not mine let’s put it that way. At the end of the trip I felt like a prince of whales! A staggering morning and early afternoon…exploring downtown Victoria coming up.
http://www.bcwhalewatchingtours.com/
