Another action packed day is planned for today. So to get it started we head down near the harbor and grab breakfast at The Island Grind. Just some pastries and a good cuppa tea for me, and cappuccino for A.
Right next to the mall that Island Grind is in, is the site of todays adventure. We are doing a 5 hour whale watching tour with Aboriginal Journeys. I've seen whales before. In Australia you can watch them migrate up and down the coast and many have been spotted on the Central Coast. But this is our first ever tour, with a specific aim to see some of these great creatures. Gary, a born and bred local, is our experienced guide. He's been doing this for over 40 years, and was recommended by our original Airbnb host. He has this great boat that seats 11, but he only puts 8 on a tour, that is covered but has a back deck you get out on when we stop. Gary is a character and before leaving I know we're in for a good day. It may have been his stories, his respect for nature and the indigenous people or the way he handled the French couple on the tour, who bought 2 giant cameras with them, taking up a ton of space. We also had a Scottish couple with us, who had been in Victoria visiting their son.
The trip starts with us heading south and turning around the bottommost point of Quadra Island and then heading north/northwest. Once in the open water, we hit some wind, making the trip bumpy. This changed Gary's course. He'd been elsewhere yesterday and seen some whales but had another spot in my today due to the conditions. Once we reached Read Island we were better protected from the elements and the boat ride became smoother. A side note, with all this wind, I'm glad we're on a boat today and not in the helicopter.
Our first stop was near a small rocky outcrop where a herd of sea lions were sunning themselves. After a quick photo opportunity off the back of the boat, we had our provided sandwich lunch on board.
We continued north. It was not much later Gary got a call from another tour that they had spotted orcas not 10 minutes from where we were, in the direction we were already headed. Between Read and Raza Islands we spotted a family of 3, known to the guides as a mother and 2 sons - the T101, T101A and T101B. They happily swan, both rounding out and spouting, as 4 boats sat back the required 200 meters. It was one of those "can't believe this is happening moments". The orcas would dive and pop up in different areas every once in while, but it was a good half hour that we got to watch these magnificent creatures.
It was just east of Stuart Island that our next stop was. Here there were some rapids, which bought fish up near the surface. We watched as about 50 eagles dove down and fished for lunch. These graceful birds had no problem swooping down into a feeding frenzy. As we sat just outside the rapids, I tried to catch photos of the eagles, but didn't really get a good one.
We were as far away as we were going to get today, so Gary turned the boat and headed back to Campbell River. He took us through some narrows, where the boat nearly bottomed out. And then back along the east side of Quadra Island. The ocean got a little choppy again, but we were going with the wind and the swell, so it wasn't as bad as the way out. There was a point where A thought she spotted something, but it was so hard to with the white caps in the water. Then the boat went up a wave and on its way back down, 2 humpbacks simultaneously breached about 100 meters in front of us. While everyone reached for cameras, they did it again, only to disappear. We caught them again, just rounding out, then their tails went up for a dive. These dives can last for up to 15 minutes, but it only seemed like a couple of minutes when they surfaced again. Again it was hard to get a good picture, as the boat was not steady in the chop, and the whales were coming up in all different spots. Still it was bonus whales that we had not planned on seeing.
We were out for 6.5 hours, but it seemed like no time at all. What a spectacular day.! We could not have picked a better tour guide to lead us and , in his words, the nature gods were with us today.
Instead of going back to the hotel, we made a stop in the souvenir store right at the harbor. We snuck in just before it closed. I bought a new cup and we picked our obligatory travel tea towel. We drove south down the South Island Freeway and stopped for an early dinner at Big Rock Garage. This diner-looking restaurant had a mix of American and Asian cuisine. We were a bit apprehensive at first as, it was fairly empty when we walked in. Mind you I don't quite think it was 6pm yet. Anyway we all got a great meal. I had the Thai Chicken Curry. It was my favorite meal of the trip so far.
Desert was had at another stop. Discovery Fishing Pier Ice Cream Shop was recommended by Gary. It sits out on the water, and we almost froze in the howling wind getting out there. A nice end to another great day for us. While it fells sad to leave this town, I'm looking forward to new adventures tomorrow.
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