I know I said I wasn’t going to post anything else until our first full day in Vancouver, however I’ve changed my mind.
Our sea day (officially) started exactly the same as the day before very rough and rocky. We had apparently had a rough night as well (I hadn’t felt it while I slept), with the winds gusting to over 33 knots during the night and pushing the ship around.
We were very lucky though as despite the rough conditions the Captain opened the walkway on deck 3 so we could at least get outside. After breakfast, Stu and I went and did a couple of laps and we are glad we did. There was some humpback activity off in the distance and we heard this barking noise coming from the ocean, there was a sealion floating next to the ship telling us off.
By about 1pm we had made it to the inside passage which is between mainland BC and Vancouver Island and suddenly the waters were still, we were protected from the wind and the ship stopped rocking. It was beautiful and it’s probably what we thought the whole trip was going to be like.
As we went down the inside passage we saw a number of humpback whales just off the side of the ship and at one point the Captain had to slow the ship right down to let a humpback pass by us. We also saw a number of Orca’s playing off in the distance as well as some otters floating past the ship.
At 5:30pm we went to the last wild life spotting and it was a pretty good evening, we saw a number of seals on an island (too far away to get a photo), and American Eagles, Stu even spotted a harbour seal that had no pigment (white with a couple of black splotches). The wildlife guide was very impressed, she hadn’t seen one in the wild before so it was a first for everyone. We even spotted a number of Dall’s Porpoises which look a bit like Orcas but are more closely related to dolphins, again a little too far away.
Canada Day 24
We had decided to self-depart from the ship this morning and we had to get off between 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning. Getting a lift was a little difficult but after we got to deck 2, the departure process went very smoothly. We were through customs and immigration in about 10 minutes. We were all very impressed with how quickly it went.
Today is our last day with Molly and Linsey, they are off to Hawaii, while we’re staying on in Vancouver. We headed to our new home the Sylvia Motel in English Bay and had a breakfast (it was supposed to be light but they were American portions), before walking along English Bay to the Aquatic Centre. Our plan is to have lunch at Granville Island before Linsey and Molly head to the airport.
English Bay has a lovely path that you can follow around to where you can catch a little water taxi over to Granville Island. It is home to a number of Canadian Geese and very large seagulls (they could carry Eric off).
We caught the water taxi over the Granville Island and did some last minute Canadian retail therapy (for Molly and Linsey) and then had an earlyish lunch at Alimentaria Mexicana where we had the beef birria tacos (we had to relive the experience), before we headed back to our motel. We said our goodbyes to Linsey and Molly (very sad to see the end of that portion of our trip), and then walked down Davie Street to near where we stayed last time we were in Vancouver then back up Robertson (24,000 steps today) to our motel. We had a lovely Malaysian meal for dinner before we hit the hay. Tomorrow we are hiking in the Lynn Canyon.
davstuholidays 