Every year I head up to Telegraph Cove, to visit friends and get out on the water to see humpbacks, Northern Resident Killer Whales and the spectacular scenery. We had an amazing day, getting up early to get onto the water in patchy fog. The fog was pretty pea soupy in places. But as we sat there, engines off we culd hear the thunder of breaches and the splash of tails and pecs through the fog. Even a glimpse of the white throat pleats and underbelly of a breaching humpback through the fog at a great distance. We had come across we were fairly certain was BCY0291 “KC” he was half breaching repeatedly and was a job to watch. But no flukes so could not be 100% certain. While that was a fantastic experience the best part of the day was at the end.
Back in Telegraph Cove, my husband and I had taken a walk a short way from the dock and town proper to watch the sun set over Johnstone Strait. It was nearly dead calm and the sunset was spectacular. A photo of that evening is below. It was the rare kind of stillness that only comes rarely. No bird calls, barely the sound of the occasional laping waves. Then we heard it. A humpback blow. Close by. Then possibly a second as it came almost immediately after the first one. Due to the landscape and geology we were in we could not see them. There was some cliff and dense forest in the way.
We never did glimpse them but just heard them breath for nearly half an hour until all of a sudden we could not sense them anymore. They were gone and it was dark and we needed a flashlight to creep back thorugh the bush to the town.
That stillness and dead quiet while listening to these gigantic creatures while not even seeing them was amazing. I learned that you do not need to see whales to know that they are there and to have a beautiful experience.
– Kathryn
Leave a Reply