Whale Watching

The highlight of the entire Canada trip for me defintely was our 3 hour Whale Watching tour in Victoria. We began our trip by taking the Ocra Spirit Adventure Shuttle from our hotel to the dock where we signed in and got our tickets. It was a sunny morning in Victoria, but as soon as we hit the open water there was nothing but ocean, fog and mist to greet us. Every once in awhile we would get a break from the fog, but not a lot. We started our tour by going to visit an area called "Race Rocks" where California Sea Lions and Stellar Sea Lions congregate throughout the year. Our guide also told us in the past they have had some Transient Orca sightings in this area, and had even witnessed a couple Transient Orca kills. For us however, nothing but Sea Lions barking and growling in our direction. It probably didn't help that one of my players were trying to bark and growl back at them. I wonder if they found him to be as annoying as I did? We then continued on in our mission of finding some Whales! After travelling for another hour we got the call that a group of Resident Orcas had been spotted near Victoria, so we made our way back towards Victoria and to meet up with the Orcas. As we arrived on the scene there were already a good amount of other boats in the vicinity, so we took up our position and waited for the Orcas to head our way. It was still a little foggy making picture taking nearly impossible, not too mention my inability to get my camera to cooperate with what I wanted it to do, so I decided to put the camera away and just enjoy the sights and sounds. The Orcas were swimming probably about 50 yards away from us surfacing to breath and then diving back down again, when all of a sudden I noticed out of the corner of my eye that 2 were heading towards our location. One surfaced right at the back of our boat and another one passed right beside the boat directly under where I was standing at the rail. It was such a thrill to not only see these Orcas in the wild but for them to pass so close to the boat was a dream come true. After they passed we made an attempt to get ahead of them again, but they were moving fairly fast as when we stopped the second time some of the pod were already in front of us, but once again a couple went under the boat and a calf surfaced right along side. I was hoping to be able to follow them some more but alas our time had expired and we made our way back to Victoria. I was a little disappointed that I was only able to snap one photo that I knew would not turn out well. I would have been more than happy to follow the whales all day long if I could. Who knows maybe I missed my calling, maybe I should have gone into Marine Biology afterall.



Visit the Orca Spirit Adventure Link to visit the Orca Spirit Blog that chronicles every whale watching tour.