Sunday May 11
“Sunday, adventure seas Sunday”
With a strong south easterly wind blowing off the Victoria waterfront, and two trips out today for Orca Spirit, passengers got a little extra “adventure” on their Marine Wildlife Tour.
9am trip
After getting through some bumpy seas as we headed east, water was a lot calmer in the north of Haro Strait. We headed across Spieden Channel to Spieden Island where we observed two bald eagles soaring close to the shoreline. They then landed on a nearby branch to enable passengers to get some great photos.
Spieden Island is a little bit different to other islands in that it is privately owned by the founder and major shareholder of Oakley, Inc, and was once used for big game hunting. There are still exotic species on the island such as Mouflon sheep, which passengers were fortunate enough to see grazing on the grass. After Spieden we cruised around scanning the water for anything marine mammal-like while appreciating the beautiful coastline this part of the world has to offer. We observed some Harbor Seals hauled out on a rock at Chatham Island then made the bumpy ride home. Passengers definitely enjoyed the bumps and water spraying over the top deck, and it certainly made for an adventurous morning trip.
1pm trip
With winds not having died down from this morning’s trip we headed east again, and then headed north along the Vancouver Island coastline, stopping off for passengers to see an active bald eagle’s nest on Sidney Island; plenty of gulls, cormorants, Canadian geese, and pigeon guillemots on Mandarte Island (which is in fact a bird sanctuary); and a great photo opportunity of a bald eagle sitting upon a directional marker. After viewing such a diversity of bird life we headed further north to Stuart Island, just south of Turn Point (named so as it is a major turning point cargo ships must make on their voyage to/from Vancouver), and low and behold, we came across half a dozen Dall’s porpoises that appeared to be foraging. Passengers were certainly excited to see these little creatures, which only get to just over 2m in length, but weigh around 200kg and are in fact one of the fastest swimming cetaceans, clocked at around
55 kph! After spending a bit of time with these robust porpoises (often mistaken as baby killer whales) it was time to make our way back to Victoria and again, passengers sure got a bit of a thrill ride on the way home. The kids on board were certainly enjoying it! After safely making it back to the harbor we farewelled our happy passengers, who were extremely lucky enough to witness Dall’s foraging around in the water column. We’ll hopefully see you “baby killer whales” again soon.
