MARINE LIFE - THE VERY SMALL AND THE VERY LARGE

MARINE LIFE – THE VERY SMALL AND THE VERY LARGE

My yearning to see the huge mammals of the ocean led me to take a whale-watching excursion. Twelve of us left Sidney harbour with our guide, for a 3hr. outing, donned in heavy, bright red, oversize overalls called stay-warm Cruiser suits. Now I know what it feels like to be a teenage boy wearing shorts with a crotch that reaches the knees!
We traveled north up the Strait of Georgia for an hour in an open aluminum whale watching boat, toward a position roughly adjacent to Vancouver, where we were hoping to find two pods of Orcas. The noise of the engine and the wild wind made conversation difficult but I did manage to talk to the woman beside me. Her parents are now living on Vancouver Island after 20 years in California. She is working on her doctorate in Hawaii and studying Diplomacy and the Military. She was very articulate and interesting to talk too. One of the courses she has taken that perked my curiosity was the study of genocide.
We did indeed see the 2 orca pods from about 100 feet away. The boats are now mandated to keep a good respectful distance away so as not to disturb or distress the animals. One group of about 10 was apparently in their rest mode, which is how whales sleep. While in this resting mode, whales, which have 2 brains, with one asleep while the other stays awake (undoubtedly a gross simplification), keep close to each other and close to the surface of the water. They will periodically take breaths and spurt small fountains of water into the air, while their bodies rise and fall in a graceful wave-like motion, gently nudging against each other.
This was a particularly interesting sight as I was able to get a fairly good view of them, unfortunately not having adapted yet to seeing through water.
After an hour or so the engine came on again and we made our way back in and out of the islands, passing some seals sunning themselves on rocks along the way.

The next morning Eric and I set off early with a plan to visit Botanical Beach. Botanical Beach is a place that Alan had taken me to when I’d visited several years ago, and I wanted Eric to see it. It is not far from Port Renfrew on the west coast of the island and you get there by driving along the Sooke road. It is important to get there at low tide as the lure of the place are the many rock pools, home to all kinds of marine wonders. We weren’t sure how long it would take us to get there and in point of fact we had time for a hearty breakfast in the little town of Port Renfrew.
There is a short walk down to the rocky beach and once there you can meander along and explore, answering only to your own whim. One is encouraged to tread carefully mindful of all the fragile marine life forms.
At first it doesn’t look as though there is very much of interest, just a bunch of barnacles one might think. But barnacles too are an important park of this eco-system and don’t want to be trodden upon. If you stand still for a bit you may begin to notice movement and see the tiny hermit crabs busily bustling about, and lots of little fish just an inch or two in length, swimming in the shallow pools.
On the rocks, still dripping from the retreating water, well disguised but in abundance none-the-less, are countless small anemones. It is in the larger pools that you can see the larger anemones, luminous in their oranges and greens, alongside ochre and red sun stars (or starfish as I know them) of different sizes, and purple sea urchins.

Then there are all the things I didn’t recognize or didn’t even see.

At one point, as we made our way gradually along the beach, and the tide was beginning to come in, Eric called out “There’s a whale!” Sure enough, not very far from shore where the bull kelp was bobbing on the surface and between rocky outcrops, was a Grey Whale clearly visible and wonderful to watch with the help of binoculars. A little further out were several more. People were gathering to watch and so were small fishing boats. I gathered from conversations that it is not uncommon for Grey Whales to come close to shore at this time of year, to feed. I stood transfixed and we watched for 2 hours as this baleen whale rose up and then dove down, displaying its huge back and the long ridge of its spine. There were many comical moments when it came up adorned in great lengths of bull kelp. A couple of times it flipped its impressive tail for us to see.
I do not want to diminish the thrill of watching the orcas of the day before, but there was something truly special about the close up view of the grey whale.
I felt lucky and grateful for the powerful experience of the presence of this beautiful intelligent marine mammal. There is so much I don’t know about them.
Finally we dragged ourselves away and began to make our way back to the car. On the drive home we stopped off at China Beach, a pristine sandy beach, a perfect place to swim. Next time I’ll have to come better prepared for that. We sat on a log on the beach for a while watching the waves and the changing sky, and in the distance saw the telltale spurt of whales as they made their way south.

It had been another perfect day.