Tuesday, October 23

The afternoon trip was a perfect for whale watching, it was a clear day and the sea was flat calm. South of Victoria we stopped to watch a pair of humpbacks at the surface, and spotted a third individual off to the front of the boat. After watching the whales on either side of us feeding for a while, they joined together and all three would surface a number of times before each would throw up its tail and take a longer dive. We also saw a fourth humpback in the area feeding, so there were a number of animals for us to watch. The group of 3 started to show a bit more activity on the surface, with a bit of thrashing from the tail and the fore flippers and a few little playful tail slaps. There were also some stellar sea lions in the area, swimming on the surface in small groups and sticking their snouts out of the water to breathe. We moved on out into the Strait to see if we could spot any other whales such as the Minkes or Orca, but were unsuccessful on this day. A stop off at Race Rocks found plenty more Stellar Sea lions hauled out along with the Californian Sea lions, lots of cormorants, but not so many harbour seals this time.