NORTHERN NEIGHBOURS

Stellar sea lions

We’ve had wonderful experiences of wildlife as we’ve sailed north. Some were so dramatic we’ve been learning to upload videos to share the joy.


On these rocks in the southeast entrance to Fife Sound, Broughton Archepelago – the mainland across from northern Vancouver Island – we watched this huge colony of stellar sea lions. There appeared to be both large males, females and young pups. And what sound effects! Here’s the video: Stellar sea lions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncgELwnsz4w


These grizzlies were watching us as we headed into a favourite anchorage near Princess Royal Island. Thomas anchored very gently, and tho they looked at us carefully and the cub started to run away, they stayed where they were. And we had a wonderful time watching.

See how close the bears are to our stern line.

The bears ate and ate, turning over clumps of greens (silverweed) and munching on mussels on old branches at the tiideling. The sedges grizzlies need this time of year hadn’t come up yet – it’s been a late spring.
Here are 2 little video’s:

Grizzly “Mom & Cub” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rQl0qD7bJI

Green Inlet grizzlies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lET7F7rIQ4Y

Elephant seal Here’s a bathing beauty we met in Princess Royal Channel

Humpback whale near Dryad Point lighthouse

We watched this exuberant whale for what seemed like hours. After anchoring in another favourite, beautiful anchorage, watching and listening to a mating pair of sandhill cranes, the next morning our whale was still diving and splashing nearby.

Here are 2 more videos:
Dryad Point Humpback
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiQ-OkuK7LQ

Humback rolls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVfZAfADi1g

Thomas has been reading and sharing an inspiring book we borrowed from Irene on Cortez. GREENPEACE, How a group of ecologists, Journalists and Visionaries Changed the World. By Rex Weyler, 2004

The whales we see are such a gift, real affirmation and forgiveness. A joyful sign of hope.

Here’s a poem from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, written in 1977 aboard the James Bay, Greenpeace’s ship, off Cape Flattery.

Dreamt of
Moby Dick the Great White Whale
Cruising about
with a flag flying
with an inscription on it
“I am what is left of Wild Nature”
and Ahab pursuing in a jet boat with a ray gun
and jet harpoons and super depth charges
and napalm flamethrowers and electric
underwater vibrators and the whole gory
glorious efficient military-political
industrial-scientific technology
of the greatest
civilization the
earth has ever
known
devoted to
the absolute extinction and
death of the natural world as we know it
And Captain Ahab Death Captain Anti-Poetry
Captain Dingbat No Face Captain Apocalypse
at the helm
of the Killer Ship of Death
And the blue-eyed whales
exhausted and running

but still
singing

to each other…