Whale watching....FAIL

So, the other day we decided to go whale watching. Great idea no? It was kind of a last minute idea.... the weather was beautiful and they had space on the boat, done deal. With about 5 minutes to spare we grabbed our jackets and headed down to the dock. We were all rather excited having never been whale watching before. We've seen whales while out on the water and even from the beach several times but in my mind the thought of going out in specific search of whales was sure to lead to magical encounters. Hmmm. Unfortunately not. 

The trip started off beautifully, we set off from 4th street dock in Tofino with the sun shining upon us and bald eagles circling up above. The water was calm and everything looked as unimaginably beautiful as Tofino always does on a sunny day. (As usual my photos do the place no justice at all.)

Sea planes zipped by us and we motored along through the islands of Clayoquot Sound passing pristnie deserted beaches and endless forested mountains. No word of a lie.....I nearly cried, it was that beautiful.

Then.......we hit open ocean. The swell picked up and things got a little rough. We were up on the top deck and it was all ok until we got near the whales. We reached a spot with a couple of other whale watching vessels bobbing up and down on the swell...apparently there was a Gray Whale and her calf about 50 feet from us. The skipper stopped the boat and that my friends is when it all went wrong....

We were now bobbing up and down and left and right and being bounced all over the place in a totally haphazard sort of way whilst desperately trying to spot Mamma whale and her baby in the choppy water. Without any warning Miss Bel vomited all over her life jacket and over most of Neil's right leg. there was a brief moment of quiet then Seb puked over his life jacket. Things had officially taken a turn for the worse. Within a few minutes it was my turn although I had by then managed to clamber down into the tiny toilet cubicle in the cabin, phew. To save you too many yucky details, things went on like this for about half an hour or so with not a sniff of a whale to be seen before skipper decided to turn back toward the calmer waters of the inlet.  I felt better almost as soon as we were out of the rough stuff but the kids spent the entire trip in a smelly daze of sea sickness and probably now have a well established fear of boating that will be hard to shake. 

And most disappointing of all was the lack of wildlife to be seen. It's not uncommon to see Gray Whales, humpback and Orca not to mention sea otters, porpoise and the occasional wolf on the shore. 

We did spot a pretty large black bear munching on grass on a beach, if you're got a magnifying glass handy you might just make him out in my photo below......sorry, I know I'm in need of a bigger lens :)

Oh and lots of bald eagles. If you use your magnifying glass again you'll be able to spot one sitting in his nest looking right at me in this pic.....

And so that was that. Our whale watching adventure was...unpleasant to say the least. It wouldn't stop me from going again and I know we were just unlucky that day but next time I think we'll leave the kids at home :)