Freya laughton

One of the biggest attrac­tions to the Gulf Islands for me is the water, occu­pied by Res­i­dent Orca, fish-eaters, and mammal-eating  Tran­sients. I have loved Orca from the moment I saw pic­tures and films of them over twenty years ago, I like other whales, and sharks and most ani­mals, but Orca are some­thing else, so I couldn’t come to this part of the world with­out look­ing for them, I didn’t have to look far. Most of the islands have whale watch­ing tours that go out dur­ing the sea­son, I have been on one before over six years ago from Vic­to­ria, the boats keep to a sched­ule, and have a queue of peo­ple wait­ing to go out, we saw whales briefly, but I wanted more, and found it on Salt Spring Island with The Gulf Island’s Whale and Wildlife Tours. Once Ian Gid­ney had our con­tact details he could let us know as soon as there was news of Orca in the area. Tran­sients were spot­ted on Sat­ur­day, so after the fan­tas­tic mar­ket we set out from Ganges har­bour to find them. And there they were, barely twenty min­utes away off Ruckle Park.

A fam­ily of about six or seven, includ­ing a baby, hunt­ing seals.

We watched from a respectable dis­tance as they pur­sued  the seals, tak­ing us back past the sail­ing club and lit­tle boats out for the day, right into the harbour!

The hunt looked calm and effort­less above the water, although I’m sure it was a dif­fer­ent story below.

The fam­ily left the har­bour in a full sleepy state, and swam out to sea, to con­tinue their journey.

Ian then set out to con­tinue the tour, as if three hours watch­ing Orca wasn’t enough! We spend over another hour around the Islands look­ing at sea lions, the lucky seals that got away.

A pair of Bald Eagles.

And lots of Bona­parte gulls.

We couldn’t have asked for a bet­ter tour, glo­ri­ous weather, a great guide, whales to watch, and all in such a beau­ti­ful place. Thank you Ian Gid­ney, and thanks to my Pa Christo­pher who leant me his tele­photo lens.

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