Saturday, August 8, 2009

Day 34 Summer Vacation 2009

Today we will be at sea for most of the day. We left Ketchikan AK yesterday just after noon, and we didn’t arrive in Victoria BC till 6:30 pm this afternoon.

It was a lazy day for both of us, we are tired after all of our shore excursions and just want to relax, but there are many activities onboard that we could partake in if we had a bit more energy. There is an Eagles tribute concert going on in the Vista Lounge, there is bingo, the casino, many computer seminars, a wildlife lecture, the list goes on and on each day for things to do onboard.

At 6:30pm we docked in Victoria BC. Here are a couple of photos of our Captain Henk Keiger docking The Westerdam in Victoria British Columbia.

4958 Captain Henk Keijer docking The Westerdam at Victoria BC4959 Captain Henk Keijer docking The Westerdam at Victoria BC

I can now add BC as a Province that we have visited (although briefly) We will have to come back to BC and do a more thorough visit.

VisitedProvincesMap4961 Victoria BC4962 Victoria BC

We left the ship and boarded a bus for our shore excursion. This evening we are going Orca Whale Watching. It wasn’t too long before we started seeing the Orca’s. We were told that Orca’s are actually huge dolphins, not whales. Orca’s are also referred to as Killer Whales, but as the guide explained, they should actually be called Killer Dolphins, but no one wants to think of dolphins as being killers. Orca’s actually do kill whales, particularly the large humpback whales, but it takes about a dozen of them in a pack to bring down a baby humpback whale, so Orca’s are quite content eating smaller prey such as seals and sea lions and fish. Here are some of the photos that I took of the Orca’s.

4994 Orca Whale Watching Victoria BC4997 Orca Whale Watching Victoria BC5060 Orca Whale Watching Victoria BC

5002 Orca Whale Watching Victoria BC5008 Orca Whale Watching Victoria BC5055 Orca Whale Watching Victoria BC

Just as we were turning the tour boat around to head back and after I had put my camera away, one of the Orca’s jumped out of the water about 100 feet away from our boat. We have all seen the commercials on TV how the Orca’s jump out of the aquarium at Sea World or Marine Land and do a spectacular splash in the water, well that is what happened here, I guess he was saying good night to us. Unfortunately no photo. I doubt I would have captured it anyways, it is very difficult to photograph whales or any wildlife, but especially whales because you never know when or where they might surface and when they do, it is only for a few brief seconds.

We headed back to port to re-board The Westerdam for our final night onboard as we sail back to Seattle Washington.

In our room we found another towel animal.

5137 Dog Towel MS Westerdam

We will be docking in Seattle around 6:30 am, so we have chosen an early disembarkation at 8:30 am and once off the ship we will be driving to Spokane Washington.

To see all of the photos that I took today, please visit my FLICKR site.

No comments:

Post a Comment