Watching the whales

June 17, 2008

Uuuhh, I was very excited today. Booked a whale watching trip on Vancouver Island at 1pm. But before I could see them had a bit of a journey to handle. First, by bus to the Tsawassen ferry terminal... I tell you that sucked!! I started at 8.00am to catch the ferry at 10.00am. But already the first (of three) buses didn't come so I had to wait for 30 minutes. Then it was unbelievable slow cause it stopped at every stop and believe me, there were a lot of stops... So could change the bus then around 30minutes later and luckily the next one came immediately and I would have made it on time...but of course the last arrived so late that I missed the ferry cause of 5 damn minutes...and the next one was a t 11.00am. Too late cause had to be at the whale wathing office at 12.30pm and also had to take the bus from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal on Vancouver Island to Victoria which took me 1h. So I was very pissed cause I thought all my whale watching plans are over now. So, called them to cancel the tour but signs and wonders happen, they had a free place on a later tour at 5.00pm. And of course I let them change me to that one. So I took the 11.00am ferry and went to Vancouver Island. The journey lasted 1,5h and the sea was very calm so I felt very good. Arrived in Swartz Bay then and took the next bus to Victoria which is also the capital of the canadian province British Columbia. And it is a beautiful city. Very green, nice people, many old houses, small streets...just cute. And the harbour is also very nice. So I strolled around the city for a while cause had some time now to do that, had some lunch and then looked for my whale watching. I was happy that it wasn't one of these big offices every tourist goes to but a relatively small one which only offers 2 or 3 trips a day.

I arrived there and now had to solve the next very big problem...the last ferry back to Vancouver was on 9.00pm and the trip would last till 8.00pm. So, how can I make it back there on time?? Solution: Taking a cab...uhh, I was sure that'll be expensive...but who cares. Who knows when I get the next chance to see some whales in nature?? So I did the trip.
We started at 5.00pm. I was really scared of the boat, so small and I already felt sick... but we had two wonderful marine biologists on board, Tim and Sheenah and they really distracted me with all their information about the whales and stuff. So I didn't think about the boat and the sea and I felt wonderful all the trip. And I must say, Tim was very gorgeous:-) That was another big help*lol*

After around 1h on the boat we arrived in the area you can usually find the whale pots. And we were absolutely lucky. The whole J-Pot (there are three different pots living in this area) was around our boat. And so we saw so many of them especially the star, "Ruffles", he's the oldest male in the pot and very famous, cause he's in a lot of films, documentations and stuff. And also "Free Willi" was directed in this area. Amazing!! So I took a lot of pictures until the battery of my camera broke down. Of course, such things must always happen in the inproper moments...but luckily had my cell phone with me and took some amazing pictures with that one...sometime we turned around to go back to Victoria and I spend my time now inside the boat with a hot chocolate ("made by gorgeous Tim":-)) and a very interesting book about whales. At 8.00pm we arrived in Victoria and I was very sad that this wonderful experience was over now. But I guess I'll never forget that in my life. A real whale directly next to you is absolutely amazing and you can't describe the feeling in that moment!!

So, the trip was over, I said goodbye to Tim, Sheenah and our captain Jeff and my cab brought me to the ferry on time. So after the same journey as in the morning I arrived in the hostel late but very very happy. A wondrful day was over!!