Back in Port McNeill

After spending a week in Vancouver, visiting friends, shopping, getting an expensive yet fantastic massage, and getting my city injection I am now back in Port McNeill.

Even though I consider myself as a naturalist and a nature lover, I must admit that the city has a certain feel to it that I really love.

Staying in both West Vancouver and Surrey - which by the way are as different as night and day, West Vancouver; the nice area with big houses and an amazing view over the water and Stanley Park and downtown Vancouver.
Surrey, the city with the highest number of crime in Canada.. Very suspicious types come out after dark.
Still don´t know which I like better...
I hadn´t been on the water for about a week so I felt a longing for the ocean and the whales that I have never felt before, so I went on a whale tour with Wild Whales Vancouver, who also were the first company I ever went out to watch whales with.
We were out all day and unfortunately the whales were quite a distance away, so the transportation took more than the actual sighting.
We did find the whales, K pod down in the states by San Juan Island.
They were quite the lively pod and they were breaching, jumping, tailslapping and doing every trick in the book, even coming right up to our boat to check out who we were.
Unfortunately we could only stay with the pod for a very short time because we had to head back..
Whale watching is very different in the south area of the islands compared to up here on the north side of Vancouver. In the south there are so many whalewatch companies and not so many whales, so it easily becomes very crowded around the small pods. We must have been cramped in there with around 25 other boats.
Up here in the northern part of Vancouver island there are about 6 whalewatch companies and many more whales and wildlife in general is so abundant here, almost like a hotspot for all the action.
Not to mention the scenery here is so stunning that I haven´t seen the likes of it anywhere.
My conclusion is that this is the place to be if wildlife and nature is what you want to see!
Today I had my first day on the water with Angela and the Sea Otter.
Aaah how I missed the Sea Otter!! (The Sea Otter is the name of the zodiac...)
And what a day to start up again! Today we saw so many different animals, that it will probably be easier to say what we didn´t see...
In absolute abundance, we saw: Minke whales, Humpback Whales, Eagles, Black Bears, Sealions, Seals, Orcas and today both Resident AND Transients (Residents eat salmon and are the most common in this area, and Transients eat large sea mammals, they can be more shy, aggresive, and not so common), Numerous seabirds, Jaegers (very very cool bird, will attack other seabirds for their food. We saw two of them attacking a seagull, a true pirate, yaarrrr), Red Snapper (Yes it was dead, but we still saw it!!)
I have so many pictures from today, but I have chosen a few of the best (If I can ever just choose a few....)
Enjoy...










Red Snapper -a pretty old one since it was really big, maybe 50 - 60 years



Minke Whale surprise, it surfaced right beside our boat





Stellar Sealion, checking us out


Stellar Sealions socializing





Seagull feather on the water, after a bateball feeding


A Minke whale surfacing right next to the three Auklets


Fork tailed petrel - very very cute little bird


Transient Killerwhales


A lone little cute Penguin... was my first thought, but no...
This is a Common Murre



Seagull in a bateball frenzy


Common Murres


Screaming, feeding, and funny seagulls


A diving Rhinoceros Auklet - they can swim up to 150 meters under water..


Seagull with a small fish



Humpback whale












This guy Angela and I named Lucky Strike.
We saw him roaming around the dumpsters, and in our backyard.
He got trapped and placed in the nature by the conservancy people...
If he keeps returning to trash areas they will end up having to shoot it.
This guy apparently is not returning to people area since we spotted him on the beaches in low tide, acting like a real wild bear, eating what he was meant to eat.
So he is either lucky or really smart. Either way we are happy to see him out there.
He is so cute with that white patch on his chest which makes him really easy to recognize.


A male orca chasing a salmon


A log with resting seagulls, and just to the left you can see a sealion. He pushed as couple of the birds off the log...
Playful little sealion..


Humpback fluke


Humpback dorsal fin