Vancouver Island 2021 - Victoria Day 2: Whale Watching Tour
all right we're here at spring tide whale watching so we're gonna go check in over here So we're lining up here ready to check in at 10am. And the weather's kind of cloudy They say it's like guaranteed to see whale. So if we don't see whales today we can come back next time for free and we're supposed to go on this marauder 4 boat move faster guys method when you're moving around hanging on the tube it's getting windy and cold in the front let's do more should be a nice day out on the water i think that it's uh relatively calm out there but we are on the open ocean so tide uh also affects what we do so it can be a little bumpy at times so make sure you're always taking some sort of precaution additionally we should see some fog out there today as you can see when we're looking at that uh we certainly have the electronics to move about here we can move around here more challenging also it'll also be a little cooler so if you see us entering the fog and you are outdoors it's a lovely morning i'm just gonna grab your attention for a couple minutes once again my name's kate i'm up at the front and i'm just gonna run through some safety and emergency procedures while we're exiting the harbor so marauder 4 has never had an emergency but in the in case a situation does arise you're going to need to know what to do so in the event of an emergency you're going to hear an alarm sound at that point we're going to ask you to gather at the back deck so that is where you boarded the boat today when you're back there the crew will be grabbing these life vests they're all in the inner cabin located underneath the seats and we will be handing them out go to the side there haha i see sand foot so a little bit scary up here wanna go there take picture for you we real foggy that's not too bad but he's standing here for long yeah maybe it's killing me seven knots inside yeah unless you want to hang around out here no we're still on a journey searching for wheels outside in a foggy kind of weather probably hard for us to sweat away over here so far no whales yet speed up and slow down searching for whales again looks like it's clearer now that's foggy over here now so maybe they saw something here see anything you see anything all right like i said i'm gonna be chatting with you guys here but by all means keep your eyes out on the water i'd hate for you to miss something because you're looking at me and not at the whale so that's gonna be my first tip come backs in particular are fairly unpredictable so we just want to keep our eyes out and not miss anything exciting to feed probably a couple hundred feet down when it comes up again we should expect it to take a few breaths at the surface so we'll get a good view of it before it does another deep dive yes all right we're seeing that we saw once in here we're going to pivot the boat so everyone can see it came up right in front of our mouth we're here if you're looking to your left you should be seeing that whale shortly wow yeah oh oh do you oh watching that was a lovely view of that humpback whale again we're gonna expect it to be down for a few minutes again doing a deeper dive you got a good sense of the size of that animal so these are very large marine mammals this one's not even full grown i'd estimate that one to be a couple years old it's a little bit on the smaller side can reach up to 50 feet long that's about 17 meters and weigh in at about 40 tons at their largest how do you feel you're being on that small boat over there now this whale they've been timing in it's been doing about four minute so we expected to keep that consistent humpback whales can hold their breath up to 45 minutes if they really wanted to are there rules about how close boats are allowed to be to the animals yeah absolutely we can get fairly close to humpbacks and it does depend if we're in canadian and american waters as well that's washington behind us um so we might be in american water it's hard to tell from here but yeah we try to keep our distance you know not to disturb that behavior the whale could choose to approach us and then we just stay put especially with humpbacks we don't know where they're going to come up again sometimes they do come up within that regulated range so so like i said while that humpback whale is diving it's going down to feed here in bc waters these are the feeding grounds of the humpback whale so they make a long migration most of the populations we have here in bc are coming from hawaii or mexico sometimes also central america so they travel all the way up that's where they breed so they have their babies down south and they don't eat well they're there so they make a long journey up here and they start to feed once they arrive in bc and some go further up north to alaska as well it is a long time they lose a lot of their body fat so they got to build that back up again while they're here so we usually see humpback whales by themselves they're often solitary they'll gather in groups if there's a good feeding ground or down south that they're breathing around oh well we're there now all right we've seen that well take another breath it's off our bow just on the right hand side it's traveled a bit of a distance we're going to come up alongside it once again so you get another good view once again we're gonna be on our left oh so the pattern of black and white and the ratio and different stars oh uh oh no it's going down an ecological reserve so it's a protected area which is great for us because that generally means there's lots of wildlife to see here so race rocks is one of the oldest lighthouses here on the west coast which is built back in 18 jellyfish and of course it's built for sailors about these rocks here so it's called race rocks because as you're looking around you may see the water sort of in turmoil there's some waves around here the current comes through quite strongly and the and in the fossils this is a popular fallout so that means skinner pets like seals and sea lions like to come here and bring themselves up they like to make themselves hurt so so we get two species of sea lions here those ones making the barking noise those are the california sea lions the ones that make the low growling noise so far the stellar yes so you may be looking in the water and noticing some heads pop-ups splashes those are also sea lions will be in the water as well you can look up on the island here's a big one with the lighthouse so the ones that are more golden in color is larger those are the stellar sea lions so you can also set them apart by locating the darker colored ones those are the californians is a great place to come and see these sea lions especially starting in july so their stellar sea lions have their breeding grounds to the store the californians have their breeding grounds to the south and they start heading here in about mid-july and their numbers just increased seagull got a bit of fish there their numbers keep increasing into the fall until the spring when they head to their breeding grounds once again so as we're looking to our left we're gonna pass one of these smaller islands here you'll notice if you look so we've got a lot of sea lions on this island left if you've got a keen eye and you're looking sort of on the farther side of that island you may see a couple lumps near the water surface where the water meets the rocks there's some harbor seals on there too so we've got harbor seals and then those larger animals further up on top of the rocks those are the sea lions and we can really hear that low growling from that group to our left that's mostly stellar sea lions um sea lions are actually much more closely related to bears so we do refer to these sea lions right where the water up on on their stomach so it's much harder for them uh victoria so i don't think that's about 30 to 40.
as handrail always finding your seats while we're traveling is fast all right everyone welcome back to victoria on behalf of myself and the rest of the crew i'd just like to say a big thank you for joining us today i hope you had a great trip i hope you enjoyed that humpback whale we saw especially when it decided to give us a bit of a show at the end there and do some snail slaps that's always fun when they decide to do that and of course those sea lions and steel through race rocks are always so fun to see as well they've got a lot of personalities there's always a lot of activity there so it could definitely be the highlight of the trip for sure i hope you've got some great photos if not you may have seen captain eve running around with his fancy camera he takes a lot of photos on there probably a couple hundred from this trip give them a couple days to sort through those we end up posting those on our social media so even if you're not a facebook or an instagram user you can just google uh springtime whale watching it should pop up for you in a couple days if you're new to victoria and you're looking for something to do maybe you're feeling a little hungry and want to get some lunch coming up on our right hand side is fisherman's dwarf so you see all of the sailboats in that marina as well as those colorful floating houses it's about a 30 minute walk from our harbor you can go down there there's lots of restaurants you can get fish and chips ice cream i think there's even a mexican restaurant there so it's always a neat place to check out i do recommend it if you had a great trip today we do always appreciate reviews so if you leave us a review on tripadvisor or google reviews that would be really great you can post your photos tell people what you saw it's still a interesting year in tourism with a pandemic going on our numbers still aren't where they usually end so especially the owners who have owned spring tide it's a small family-owned business they do appreciate that word of mouth so even if you chat with your friends and family we do appreciate that we're gonna be at the dock here in a few minutes now is a great time to take a look under your seat take a look around you make sure you aren't forgetting any belongings if you end up back at your car or your hotel room and you notice you're missing something you can come check back at the office those items think they're way up there if you borrowed a jacket from us today you can keep that on for a few more moments but when you get a chance just take that off check the pockets before make sure you're not leaving any cell phones behind and just put those jackets on the seats the crew will collect those after if you want to leave something behind on purpose if you felt well taken care of today we do always accept tips and gratuities so you can pass those to the crew as you disembark the boat once again we're coming around the corner here will be a few more minutes until we're back at the dock i just ask that you keep this area where i'm standing clear so this doorway is gonna open up this way so if we're standing back a few feet that really helps us out let us get off the boat secure it nice and tight tie those lines down and we'll let you know when it is safe to disembark once again thanks so much for joining us today i hope to see you again
2021-09-26 20:10
