Sunday, June 14th

On our 9 am trip, we headed south into Juan de Fuca Strait, We had an excellent trip this morning as we travelled west of Victoria in search of orcas and other marine mammals. We had several great wildlife encounters this morning, including a mature bald eagle in the Bedford Islets and a plethora of pinnipeds at Race Rocks. Race Rocks was great this morning with sightings of harbour seals, northern elephant seals and even a California sea lion. Of particular interest was a massive male elephant seal that had hauled itself up the boat ramp and was resting beside the boat house. These animals are absolutely huge, 14 feet and 5,000 pounds for a mature male! We concluded our adventure with a stop at Albert Head to view an active eagle's nest. All in all, it was another excellent adventure on the Salish Sea.

This afternoon, our search for cetaceans took us east with a first stop at Discovery Island. Harbour seals were incredibly numerous on the low tide today. Seeing any marine mammal is always a privilege and harbour seals are an example of how a species can recover if they are allowed to. Once hunted to reduce perceived competition for fish stocks, harbour seals are now protected and have almost recovered to historic levels. We were also fortunate to see two bald eagles, one immature bald eagle and another fully mature eagle complete with the signature white head and tail feathers. We had a long journey today, travelling to Salmon Bank and to Whale Rocks. Although we did not see any whales this afternoon, as always the scenery and wildlife of the Salish Sea was a sight to behold.