Whale Watching, Vancouver Island

I went whale watching with my Mom one sunny afternoon this summer.  We left from the harbour in Cowichan Bay on a speedboat, zipping all the way down to the Strait of Juan de Fuca where two resident pods of orcas were hanging out (J pod and K pod).    It’s too bad they didn’t get more creative with the names!  J and K pod are kind of lame for these magnificent creatures. 

Leaving Cowichan Bay for our whale watching adventure:

Even during the summer and with our heavy insulated suits on it was pretty cold on the speedboat when it was moving full speed.  While waiting for some whales it was time for a few less exotic people pictures.

I think my Mom looks like a seasoned Arctic explorer in this one:

Quick primer on orcas:

There are two main types: resident and transient orcas.  The resident orcas travel in bigger groups (~20-40 whales per pod around Vancouver Island at the moment) and eat fish (97% salmon in these waters).   They tend to hang out in the same locations and have lots of vocalizations since these don’t seem to scare away the fish.  Transient orcas travel in much smaller groups (2-6) and mostly eat marine mammals.  They’re also a lot quieter since their prey can hear their clicks and chirps.  Based on genetic tests, these two types of orca haven’t interbred for over 10,000 years!

We only saw resident orcas on our tour, although we tried to track down some transients spotted earlier in the day.  Our guide was excellent and had been out doing tours for years and could identify most of the orcas by name based on their fin and dorsal patches.    They are pretty difficult to photograph since they appear all over the place, but only for an instant before diving again, but I did manage to capture a few shots:

Other interesting facts (from Wikipedia and other):

·         The females can live up to 90 years old, and male life expectancy is 50-60 years.  In captivity life expectancy is only 20-30 years.

·         Residents are all mommies’ boys (and girls), living with their mothers their entire lives

·         Orcas have the second-heaviest brains among marine mammals (after sperm whales, which have the largest brain of ANY animal).  Orcas have brains ~5x the size of humans.

·         Orcas will deliberately beach themselves to catch seals

·         They can swim up to ~50 km/hr

·         Orca pregnancies last 13-17 months.  That seems like a long time to me, but I guess they aren't on their feet with their baby-weight.

The two pods seemed to be swimming together and we thought we might be in for a rare treat of a “super-pod” which is when multiple pods merge together.  Apparently these are raucous parties with lots of spyhops, tail slaps, and screeches, chirps and echolocation.  Plus a lot of orcas use the time to fraternize and flirt with each other.  Unfortunately the matriarch of K pod decided to slow the pod down so we didn’t get a chance to see the mega-pod-party.

On our tour we did however catch a glimpse of Tucker, the whale-scat-sniffer-dog.  He’s a black lab who can smell orca scat from over a kilometre away.  He stands on the bow of the ship and helps tell the researchers where to go.  He’s so useful because the research ships can stay further back from the whales themselves (i.e. not stress them) and still scoop up enough whale-poo samples before they quickly sink out of sight.   The samples are jam-packed with genetic, dietary and physiological info.  Useful stuff to countless marine biology PhDs and post-docs.  On a nice day it makes me wish I had studied something cool like orcas!

Tucker has got a funky K-9 Ruffwear lifejacket and special goggles to protect his eyes, and is a graduate of the “Conservation Canines” program at the University of Washington.  They apparently modify methods used to train dogs to find narcotics. 

On our way back we made frequent stops for other wildlife sitings, including harbour seals sprawled out on rocks catching some sun. 

Mandarte Nature Preserve  is a hunk of rock home to thousands of nesting cormorants.  (I think the white rock is mostly bird poo).

A dignified bald eagle posing for us. 

And because I was still on my wildlife photo kick I snapped some hummingbirds gathering at a feeder after a delicious lunch at Genoa Bay. 

Stein Valley, BC

Congrats to everyone who played Canadian Nats last weekend in Victoria.  I’m still out with my knee injury (the current diagnosis is a torn medial retinaculum) but it was exciting following everything online.  Congrats to Zephyr on reaching their goal of top-four in Canada and to my brother Dev who won bronze with Calgary’s Open team “The Ghosts”!

While everyone else was sweating on a field in Victoria I was relaxing next to the beach at Harrison Hot Springs.  This post though is from a backpacking trip to Stein Valley just before my knee injury over the May Long Weekend.  The Stein Valley is a great early season hike since it’s at a low elevation so that the snow clears out by the end of April.  Plus most of the hike is right along the river which means it’s hard to lose the trail (always a concern in the wild, wild BC West).    Unfortunately I’m missing quite a few photos since Rod’s camera met an untimely end.  Only about an hour from our car heading back out we stopped for a break near some steep cliffs and the camera went tumbling down.   That's our offering to the river gods I suppose.

The trail starts a little ways beyond Lytton, but to get there you have to take a ferry across.  It’s tiny with a maximum load of only two cars.  We had to wait awhile for our turn, but it was pretty neat.  It’s a “reaction ferry” which is propelled entirely by the river by angling the rudders into the current.  The overhead cable guides the ferry to the other side.  It’s environmentally friendly operating on just a little man-power to turn the rudders  (there’s an emergency motor which is rarely used) !   We were a bit worried as to high water levels since the spring melt can put it out of commission, but luckily we missed it by about a week.

The provincial park is a rare success story in conservation -  there was a plan in the 80s to log the valley, but there were enough protests raising awareness and public support  that a park was created in 1995.  A strong argument was that it was the last untouched watershed in the southern Coast Mountains.

Entrance to the park through the valley:

Stryen Creek bridge close to the start of the trail:

The park is run jointly between BC Parks and the Lytton First Nation since the Stein Valley has been used for centuries by aboriginals for spiritual purposes.  There are pictographs and petroglyphs, although you have to look closely to find them.  (FYI I didn't know this before but pictographs are paintings, done almost exclusively in red ochre, while petroglyphs are carvings).

Ponderosa pine trees forming a tree memorial for members of the Lytton band, a number of whom helped protect the Stein from development.

I think I’m going to introduce “thar” into my vocabulary. 

This park is also great because there are campsites every 3-4 km.  We decided to push on and go 15 km to Suspension Bridge Camp to escape the crowds and multiple boy scout/girl guide groups.   To get there we went past the “Devil’s Staircase”; this was the most elevation we got on the trail, which wasn’t that bad except that I had Beck’s “Devil’s Haircut” song stuck in my head the entire way up. 

The eponymous suspension bridge of “Suspension Bridge Camp”:

Vancouver’s Clubtread hiking website says of Suspension Bridge Camp “Lots of camping room here, but room for only about 5-6 tents *perfectly* level.”  Ha!  We were the second group of people to arrive.  Not wanting to crowd the first tent and not knowing how many were still to come, we tried to give the first guy some privacy but ended setting up on quite the slope.  I woke up about ten times each night having slid all the way down to the bottom of the tent. 

We settled into camp, enjoying the access to fresh water to soak our feet after 15 km of pounding.  The elevation gain wasn’t much (~300 m), but 15 km is still a long way with full packs!  Rod and I’s packs are snuggling after a long day.

 JS cooked us a delicious meal with lamb sausage, chickpeas and roasted vegetable curry.  We thought we were being a bit ridiculous dragging several litres of wine up the trail to enjoy with dinner, but we were put to shame by a crazy group in their mid-thirties who had whole vegetables (onions, leeks, dill, etc.), a cutting board, beer, a pineapple  (!?) and eggs.   In the morning while they were cooking up their eggs we saw a guy add a splash of amber liquid to the pan.  Olive oil we guessed?  “Whisky” was the reply. These guys had EVERYTHING, except for one member of their crew who did the whole hike in crocs and somehow forgot to pack pants (it was pretty chilly in the evening and you feel bad seeing someone wrap shirts around their knees). 

An amicable guy also brought his mandolin entertaining us all with everything from Acadian folk songs to a cover of Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice” (which I enjoyed much more than the original).  One woman had her own indestructible bear cache barrel which also doubled as a drum for musical accompaniment.   All in all a fun group of hard-core foodies.  

The next day we hiked another ~15 km (7.5 km in and back) to check out some more of the trail.  The trail keeps going another 30 km or so, but we weren’t super impressed beyond the Suspension Bridge; it was pretty much just bushwacking and mosquitoes, although there were some beautiful wild flowers and more glimpses of the river:

Victorious after surviving the Stein Valley!  Let me know if you have any other recommendations for backpacking trails in BC!

 

Amy’s Visit, Vancouver/Deep Cove/Gabriola Island

Earlier this spring my good friend Amy visited Van on the way to and from a stint on Gabriola Island to paint.   She brought back some amazing paintings as well as pictures (see the trees above) but you’ll have to wait until her next show to see the art.  In the meantime, you can check out her online gallery (www.fragmentsofsoul.com) . She gets all of the credit for these photos too.  I love this one she snapped of her cats hanging out on her luggage before she left Calgary:

On her first weekend in Vancouver Amy, Sarah and I went to Deep Cove, a little East of North Van.   It’s a charming quiet getaway from Vancouver.  We weren’t equipped for it, but the next time I’d like to rent a kayak and head up Indian Arm (a fjord of the Burrard Inlet).

Shots from the harbour in Deep Cove:

After the somewhat chilly walk we warmed up at Honey, a cafe famous for their honey glazed doughnuts.  They were a bit rich for me, but a lot of people rave about these “sweet balls of dough”.  Other yelp comments included “I ate two of these bad boys, with no regrets (my waist line will say otherwise though) “ and “While this dough is heavy, it still melts in your mouth. I'm drooling as I reminisce".

As if Honey’s weren’t enough, we decided to go all out for delicious Thai that night and are grinning after being stuffed with coconut milk concoctions.

After a good time in Van Amy went out to the island for a few weeks to take in the beautiful landscapes and trees which inspired Emily Carr.  She was extremely productive, creating tons of new work.  Looking forward to seeing it soon Amy!

On her way back Amy’s visit overlapped with one from Kiran.  We had lots of laughs over brunch and a walk down Commercial Drive (or simply “the Drive” if you are a cool Vancouverite ).  It’s a funky area of town with tons of good bars, live music, and fabulous brunch places.  It’s also great for spotting hipsters, which I have a tough time defining, but Wikipedia does a pretty good job.

  

Other Drive highlights: candy store, ubiquitous Vancouver rubber boots, and yarn bombing:

Speaking of yarn bombing, some pretty cool stuff turns up if you search it under google images including these gems:

All in all a fun visit with Amy, although I wish the rain had held off!