The Manuscript of My Life

Whale of a Tale!

{ 06:29, 2009-Jul-25 } { 4 comments } { Link }
For those of you on Facebook, you know that I went on a whale watching excursion on July 23 to see orcas - aka killer whales. My sister and I had gone on July 16, but hadn't seen any whales, even though it was a perfect day, so when we returned I got vouchers for a return trip. As my sis wasn't going to be here, I took Neil with me instead.

It was not a clear day, and there was a huge fog bank, so we were pretty bundled up against the cold. We headed out and soon learned that orcas had been spotted on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, near the San Juan Islands, which is actually in the US. Off we headed and after about 90 minutes arrived in two pods of orcas. There were 45 whales altogether, and it was amazing and exciting to see them. I handed the camera over to Neil, as he is a foot taller than me, and could see from the deck, whereas I had to stand on the seat and hang on for dear life to the cabin so I wouldn't fall into the drink! I didn't want to be orca bait for sure! At any rate he snapped some excellent photos and I will put the link up at the end.

After spending 45 minutes with the whales, we had to head back to the dock, which was a 90 + minute trip. On our way back, just past Mayne Island going into Georgia Strait we happened upon our sister ship. She was sitting rather low in the water, and motioned for us to come up alongside, which we did. The captain decided to offload their passengers onto our boat, and take theirs into the dock on Mayne, as he was pretty sure he would not make it back home. So, we now had an extra 32 people on our boat, which was pretty crowded, but doable. We started to head into Mayne, but after about 5 minutes, noticed that the stern was indeed very heavy in the water. The captain was trying to pump out the bilge, but no go. Within another 5 minutes the stern was swamped with water, and the captain was still trying to get rid of the excess while the guide steered the boat to the dock. At this point, we could see that it wasn't going to make it. Water began pouring over the stern and the captain and guide were now thigh-deep in water. The guide grabbed her life jacket and pack and made for the rescue boat that appeared after their Mayday call! The captain hopped on the cabin, trying to get his backpack and log while the guide jumped to safety. By this time, things were going down fast and he had to scramble across the cockpit and jump for safety. He landed in the water, as his boat started to go down, and leaned precariously overtop of the rescue boat. The captain was in the water somewhere in between, but we could see him being pulled aboard the rescue vessel within a few minutes.

By this time the boat was standing straight up and we thought it was perched on the bottom, but within another 5 minutes, it glug, glugged down to the bottom of the chuck. The whole thing took way too little time! If the passengers had not been transferred to our boat when they were, the whole thing would have been completely disastrous!

We then decided to head back to our home base after we made sure the captain and crew were safe. We got about 20 minutes into our trip, and the Strait was just too choppy and wavy and the captain figured we were lying too low in the water with 32 extra passengers, so we went back to the calm waters of the island to await the arrival of another boat to pick up the extra passengers.

In the meantime the RCMP, Coastguard, Search and Rescue and CTV news were all there buzzing around. Fortunately, it was warm, sunny, and we had water and granola bars for everyone, so we just chilled for 90 minutes until the extra boat arrived. By this time we were all tired and ready to go home. We finally transferred the extra passengers to the new boat and headed home to arrive at about 4:30, 7 1/2 hours after we had left.

A long and very exciting day. I was happy I saw whales, and that Neil was with me to share the experience, and that everything turned out well and no one was hurt!

Here are the links to my flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kinnigu...816198116/ - whales
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kinnigu...828533320/ - Sinking ship.

You should watch them in the slideshow for the best results!


Untitled Comment

{ 10:29, 2009-Jul-25 } { Posted by LauriesAsylum }
Oh my goodness! I'm going to look at the pictures right now!

Untitled Comment

{ 05:43, 2009-Jul-26 } { Posted by sarai }
Wow what an adventure!

Untitled Comment

{ 10:31, 2009-Jul-28 } { Posted by indigomoonarts }
I commented on Flickr but wow what fun! Even the sinking ship was exciting! I so would have loved to been there.
Thanks Neil for the great pictures to share with us all.
Glad YOU got some time with Neil out of the house.

Untitled Comment

{ 07:00, 2009-Jul-30 } { Posted by littleMissConfused }
Awesome photos! Wow what an adventure! Glad you wer on the boat that didn't sink!

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