Today was a remarkable day. It is Eileen and Bill’s 35th wedding anniversary and Bill went out fishing very early this morning. He returned with a 36 pound Spring salmon and Rob pulled up (a) crab in his trap. With these successes, we decided to move on to Perfection Cove near Duncanby Landing; this would put us in our jump off position to round Cape Caution and would also enable us to go out for dinner at the lodge.
 |
| Happy Anniversary Eileen and Bill |
 |
| Casca relaxes after a morning spent fishing with Bill |
As soon as we had anchored and stern-tied in Perfection Cove, we saw a whale spout nearby. Rob, Blue and I jumped in our dinghy and headed out to see more. Herring (or pilchards - oily fish, like sardine) were jumping out of the water all around us – this was a prime feeding ground for the whales. Not wanting to disturb them with our engine noise and wake, we tied the dinghy to a rocky peninsula and the three of us scaled a large rock jutting out into the water. There we sat, waiting. For about 2 minutes and then, what a show it was. Three whales were using bubbles (this is called a "bubble curtain") to herd the fish into a dense ball. They then rise up under the ball of fish, with mouths wide open and breach the surface. We could hear their eerie and beautiful sounds echoing in the water as all around us we watched them breach, roll on their side and push their huge open mouths out of the water. We were stunned when, about 30 feet from where we sat, two Humpback Whales pushed their heads and wide-open mouths up out of the water. Water spilled out of their mouths but presumably many fish stayed in. Blue was crying by now and not enjoying this at all. When we finally decided to return to the dinghy, we found ourselves marooned on the large rock…the tide had risen substantially and we were now surrounded, and separated from the dinghy, by rising water. We jumped and splashed back to the dinghy and turned into the very narrow channel that leads to our anchorage. There, we were again surprised to find that two of the Humpbacks were traveling beside us. It was just amazing.
 |
| A Humpback Whale spouts nearby |
 |
| Two of the whales spouting |
 |
| The heads of two whales emerge |
 |
| The spouts of both whales are visible |
 |
| ok, I am actually hating this |
 |
This is the big rock we climbed up, now looking tiny and surrounded by water.
The tide changes fast out here and you can easily get caught... |
 |
Two whales travel alongside our dinghy in the narrow channel
leading to our anchorage |
 |
| A whale breaches as we turn in to our anchorage |
For dinner, we headed to the lodge (again by dinghy) and again saw whales spouting and breaching all around us. By this time, Blue had had it with the whales. He was crying and trembling and cowered in the bottom of the boat. I felt bad; he was scared and didn’t want to be here. However, he recovered quickly onshore, running ahead and straight into the busy restaurant. It's been a wonderful day all around.
No comments:
Post a Comment