This trip to BC, hinged on today's activity. J wanted to visit Khutzeymateen - a grizzly bear sanctuary formed in 1994. Grizzlies are attracted to this area because they eat the sedge grass or intertidal grass which is high in proteins. The grass sustains the grizzlies through the summer (along with eating clams, cockles and mussels), but as soon as the salmon begin their run up the river, the bears follow the salmon. The bears need the fat from the salmon to really put on pounds to survive hibernation in the winter. They run these excursions until the end of July and then the grizzlies disappear, leaving the grass to follow the salmon.
When I first woke up this morning I was peaking through the window to see if the day began with fog (as it did yesterday), and I was shocked to see this go past:
It was the Ruby Princess cruise ship! Yesterday we pondered whether any cruise lines stopped at Prince Rupert - and I suggested maybe smaller vessels did, so I was shocked to see this size of a ship rolling past our window. We learned later in the day that Prince Rupert has the third deepest harbour in the world!
After breakfast we walked down to 205 Cow Bay Road - where we were to meet Prince Rupert Adventure Tours at 8:30 AM. As we approached the area, J jumped in the lineup, while I went inside to ask about processing. Captain Doug Davis owned the company and the boat we were one - and he captained our ship. He told us he bought the designs for the boat from an Australian company and had it built in Canada eighteen years ago. I believe he called the ship "Inside Passage". We set off at 9 AM and didn't return until 5 pm. It was a full day of adventure.
We had the pleasure of watching different groups of grizzlies over a period of more than 3 hours.
We then watched some humpback whales.
And we had the privilege of watching bald eagles too.
The day was everything we hoped it would be. We spotted the wildlife. I got good at watching Captain Dave, First mate Dave, and one of the staffers Manny - seeing what direction they pointed their binoculars trying to spot wildlife. If they looked left, I looked left!
Captain Doug Davis sitting out with his 400 x 2.4 lens to capture photos amazing enough to publish in the book below!
A stellar day it was!
After a tasty supper of wonton soup at a local Vietnamese restaurant, we headed back to our room to look at photos as write this blog!
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