DLTK's British Columbia Road Trip
Day 7: Victoria
Another morning with mommy up first! This has to be some kind of record. I headed down to the complimentary breakfast and picked up
some things for everyone. Mommy woke everyone with her “room service”.
The girls were up late the previous night – they sometimes just refuse to sleep – so we decided to spend a quiet morning at the hotel. We did a bit of swimming and then headed to the harbor for a quick lunch and a whale watching tour. Before ordering lunch Daddy realized that full tummies and the ocean waves did not mix so we skipped lunch – luckily their were chocolate chip cookies on board the boat to tide us over.
The boat ride out where the killer whales were took about one hour. During the time, the marine biologist told us a bit about the whales. There are three types of killer whales: offshore, transient and resident. Offshore whales live far out in the ocean. Not much is known about them. Transient whales move around a lot with no home territory – they live in groups (small pods) of 1 to 10 whales. Transient whales are not finicky eaters – they eat fish, sea lions and even baby whales from other pods. Resident whales, like the kind we saw, live in territories near the shore. They live in large pods that are all one family. The leader of the pod is the oldest female. This matriarch decides on feeding times and pod movement. Resident whales have a limited diet with “favorite” foods. The pod we saw ate Chinook salmon. They get their water from squid they consum (about 15% of their diet) because squid are made mostly of water. The pods near Victoria are called J, K and L. The matriarch of the J pod is 91 years old, most only live to 60. The largest whale was a 55 year old male named “Ruffles”.
When we arrived Daddy was a bit disappointed that we couldn’t see the whales closer, but we still enjoyed seeing them come up for air every 4 minutes or so. We even saw one leap out of the water a couple times. We headed back to Victoria, riding on the front of the boat. Kaitlyn fell asleep but the rest of us enjoyed the splashy scenic ride. We even caught a glimpse of a Dall’s porpoise.
After the tour we stopped at Nautical Nellie’s for another seafood meal (the girls had pizza, of course). Then we returned to the hotel for an evening swim and bed.