We came to Vancouver Island to get away and away we have gotten. We traveled 300 miles on an island to the far north side where there isn’t much to do other than enjoy the quiet and oh yea, watch the wildlife!
There are lots of fishermen here and today is opening day of Salmon season. I took a ride on a tour to view wildlife from Seasmoke Whale Watching Tours and we saw some of the most amazing creatures feeding in the wild.
Turkey Vultures finishing off a seal
Mama and a pup resting on a rock
Bald Eagle, he was waiting above for the Turkey Vultures to be gone! Or maybe arranging his takeover
Amazing views from my tour boat
A narrow opening between two islands
The main event was entering a large bay to see the dolphins feeding on a bait ball. A Bait ball is a group of small schooling fish that dolphins, birds, sea otters and whales hunt for and when they find one the results are spectacular. We sat in a small boat for almost 2 hours enjoying the best view to be had. There were 2 Humpbacks among the hundreds of dolphins having a feast. The Humpbacks were using a technique called trap feeding where they relax in the water, raise their open mouths and wave their fins capturing these little fishes until they are full! (Humpbacks eat 1 ton of food per day!) There were several tour boats and fisherman all hanging out just watching. The radio in our boat was going crazy! The guides were all so excited as this in not a regular occurrence and we got such a treat. At one point our guide was so distracted viewing, and photographing he never even noticed the humpback that was off the back of our boat! When we finally shared with him it was so close we had to just sit there and watch. We could have easily reached off the back of the boat and touched him if we weren’t so shocked. My camera was put away by then because at some point you need to just sit back and enjoy nature! One of my tour mates got some so maybe he will share them with me, but for now enjoy!
And if things couldn’t get more exciting we had a cruise ship come right through the middle of things and the dolphins put on a show
It was an amazing 4 hours and I can’t wait to go back out there! The dolphins would have been a beautiful site, the Humpbacks were a bonus and to have one of them get so close to our boat will be a memory that won’t be forgotten anytime soon!