3 September - Orcas!

Saturday 3 September

The day dawned fine, if a little cloudy. We made good time and after a sumptuous breakfast, headed for the dock to pick up our whale watch tour. After signing our life (indemnity) away, we waited until all had arrived then we were presented with our life ‘jackets’. These consisted of a fully insulated suit with built in buoyancy. Gee we looked smart! Felt like we were about to board a rocket ship as we walked along the dock to the Zodiac – our craft for the day.

As we were leaving harbour our guide, Leif, reported a sighting of humpbacks north of Campbell River, so that’s where we would be heading. I had come this distance for Orca! Oh well. Then as we were actually exiting the harbour marina another report came in. Orca – south! So that’s where we headed full speed.

We were soon on site– a known pod of 4 Orca, Mum, two sons and an as yet to be identified sibling. Orcas are not identified as male or female until they are around 10 years of age.

Our guide was marvellous at positioning the boat within all the rules for whale viewing, which are complex. It’s not simply a matter of staying 100m away. There are many other factors involved. We were lucky that we were at least able to position ourselves so that the light was behind us! We stayed with this pod, following their journey south, for about an hour. So happy.

A little about Orcas. They live in a matriarchal society. Transients hut and feed on mammals; residents feed on fish. The females live for 60 to 80 years; males 50 to 60.

The group we saw was T002C, mother and two sons and another baby gender yet to be identified. This transient group will be feeding on the sea lions which migrate from California.

Leaving them to continue on their journey, we turned north to see if we could catch up with the previously sighted humpbacks. As luck would have it they were meandering along and we reached them quite quickly. They were headed in the direction of where we would need to be for lunch. So we kept following them.

On our way to catch the humpbacks we did a quick stop by a sea lion colony where they were busy sleeping, but as we were viewing them they decided it was time to wake up and they were trundling around on the rocks and some decided to return to the water. So that was very enjoyable.

This sea lion has obviously been in a fight, with a large piece of skin missing on his side

This one too

This was a male only group. The females stay with their pups in California. Only the males migrate as they need to feed to gain weight in order to fight other males to win females.

We easily found the two humpbacks which were feeding close to shore. We followed them for a while and they provided us lots of interesting viewing. When we’d had our fill we headed on again to Stewart Island where we were going for our lunch. We also saw a bald eagle on our journey but photographs were difficult because of the rocking of the boat.

There she blows!

On our way to Stewart Island we spotted a pod of Dalls porpoise. These are small porpoise which are very active, but they are so fast it is very difficult to photography them. They were off in the distance too so no photographs. However, just before we arrived at our lunch spot we were passing a cruiser which had several of these porpoise having fun in the bow wave. Our guide was beside himself. He said he had never seen this in all his years of guiding.

Stewart Island lunch stop

After lunch we stopped by a small island, this time with a colony of seals. I learned that the significant difference between sea lions and seals is not just size, but the fact that seals have no 'shoulders'. They flop around on their bellies, but sea lions can 'walk' using their flippers.

On our return to Campbell River we scored another humpback sighting – this one was identifiable – by a notch in his dorsal fin. His nickname is KC which stands for Kelp Creature. He was first seen playing in a kelp forest as a first year calf in 2002.

The 10,000 per night suite at an exclusive hotel opposite Stewart Island

There are many strange phenomena in these waters, this tidal surge is one

All in all a very fulfilling and exciting day.

As we had returned to harbour mid afternoon, we had time to visit the Museum which really was a bonus. We had wanted to fit it in so the timing was perfect and we were able to spend a good hour and a half looking around at the First Nations exhibits and the other exhibits on the timber and salmon industries which were instrumental in the development of the town.

Campbell River Museum

We headed back to our accommodation as we had time to freshen up, then went to a recommended pub for dinner. Rip Tide Hotel was right on the waterfront and had a great variety on their menu. I was tempted by a pasta dish which was on their ‘specials’ list, but then I saw it served up to another guest and realised it was too much to consume – it was huge. So I ended up with a fish dish with lots of veges which was very delicious and not as huge! Ian had the steak sandwich which was a pretty good size as well!

Dessert, well we couldn't resist another huge ice cream from the wharf. How else could one top off such a wonderful day.

A couple of maps - the one our guide showed us at lunch time to indicate where we had travelled and seen the wild life and the other which is from my phone and Google Maps showing all the channels we traversed during our two days touring.

Grizzly tour coming up ...