Our Wildlife trip this Sunday afternoon was set against dramatic skies and seas. We left the harbour with Capt. Gord in the wheelhouse, and Brandon and Dan as our naturalists on board.
Although the season is coming to a close for the Ocean Magic sailings, our Zodiacs will be heading out daily in search of the amazing wildlife and stunning scenery to be seen here on the west coast. We headed south and west insearch of whales. Our visit to Race Rocks Ecological Reserve always provides great looks at those blonde boys, the Steller Sea Lions, posturing for the best positions on the rocks. Harbour and Elephant Seals were also seen in this location. Bait-balls with hovering gulls above were viewed as we searched for Humpback Whales that have been seen frequently over the past month or so. We finally came across two familiar Humpback whales, Split Fin and Split Fluke as they are affectionately known. These two have been visiting these waters at this time of year, since 2006. They were first brought here by their mothers as calves at that time. We watched these two gentle-giants foraging, lifting their enormous flukes/tails to take deep dives.
This was a great ending to our wildlife trip this afternoon, and our guests were all smiles as we disembarked once back at the dock. Another fantastic trip once again with Prince of Whales.
Marie “Orca-Magic”, Clint “Orcawizard”

Most of the images on the blog are shot with a 400 mm telephoto lens. Because of our restrictions around wildlife (100+ meters), we use powerful lenses to better share orca activity that passengers see on their trips. Keep in mind this also heavily compresses space between objects. We also crop images for best blog viewing.

It certainly was a great day for an adventure. The sun was out and the winds light as our Skipper Scotty slipped the Ocean Magic from Victoria’s inner harbour. He headed us south in a search to find members of the southern resident community of Orca. We worked our way south and the east towards Hein Bank. Here we found members of J and K pod’s spread out and feeding. We observed these apex predators chasing salmon down, fluke slapping and spy hops. Dan and Liz our Naturalist answered all the questions and passed on a wealth of information about these apex predators. We then spotted a pair of Humpback Whales not far away. We got some great views of these gentle giants as they came up for air. Our guests were treated to yet another great marine wildlife adventure with Prince Of Whales!
Clint “Orcawizard

Most of the images on the blog are shot with a 400 mm telephoto lens. Because of our restrictions around wildlife (100+ meters), we use powerful lenses to better share orca activity that passengers see on their trips. Keep in mind this also heavily compresses space between objects. We also crop images for best blog viewing.