On the same day I went bear watching with The Whale Centre, I also joined the 2 pm whale watching tour. The swells were a little large, but I had faith in our skipper Howie to keep us dry. I am not a fan of big water, but his skills reassured me.
It wasn’t long before I spotted a spout at our 11 O’Clock and we slowed down to check it out. Several long dives later we were almost ready to give up and head to some other whales when the Grey Whale came up several hundred meters off our 2 O’Clock. We headed his way and not long after we caught up he breached! And then breached again, and again and again! It was my first time seeing a grey whale breach and I was ecstatic! We could have headed home right then and everyone on board would have been happy!
After our fabulous encounter we headed further South down the coast to check out the feeding grey whales at Long Beach.
First of all, the scenery heading down the coast was stunning. It doesn’t get much more west coast than this!
There were some large swells at Long Beach, but Howie kept the bow pointed into the swell so we weren’t rocking side to side. The only issue was seeing the whales between the swells! Often they would come up to the top of a swell though and give us an extra fantastic view! These whales were feeding on the shallow, sandy bottom of the bay and you could see large clouds of silt around them as they surfaced.
Our ride back was bumpy – but supplemented by a fun sea otter encounter and more gorgeous scenery! All in all a fantastic day!
-Marcie
This story was adapted from a blog-read the original post here
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