Ferry Ride
The only way to get to Vancouver Island with my vehicle is by ferry. There are a couple different ports you can sail out of near Seattle. I chose to sail out of Anacortes, which was about a 2 1/2 hour ferry ride.
When I arrived I had a short 25 minute drive south to Victoria. The first thing on the drive that I noticed (besides the obvious use of the metric system) was how clean it is here. Roads are in great shape, no trash laying around, everything seemed well manicured.
Victoria
Once in Victoria I take a little time to check out the downtown area. Victoria also strikes me as a very clean city and seems to have a bit of a European vibe.
Whale Watching
I’ve never gone whale watching before and I was very excited about going. The tours were sold out on the day I initially wanted to go, so I ended up having to go on the only day all week where it was overcast and cool. Oh well! I chose the zodiac boat tour to add a little flavor to the adventure. There are a couple different resident Orca pods in the waters surrounding Victoria. Not only Orcas but humpback whales, gray whales, minke whales, and fin whales among others that are all possible to be viewed when out on these waters. Alright let’s go!
Actually, I can’t say that I didn’t see ANY whales, but most of the whales that were actually around decided to stay just below the surface and not show themselves.
The 3 hour tour (no not Gilligan’s Island folks!) comprised of about an hour driving out from and then back to the inner harbor, 2 hours driving from “hot spot” to “hot spot” not seeing anything, and less than 1 minute actually viewing a couple humpback whales. Here are the highlights. All 37 seconds!
I hope you were sitting down while viewing that incredible (and lengthy) video footage! Needless to say, I left feeling pretty salty about the experience.
Plain Old Rant
I’m not exactly sure what I just paid for. About halfway through the tour it was obvious to me that we weren’t going to see a whole lot today. It didn’t help that the whole time our guide was telling everyone how many whales they “normally” see, and how awesome it “usually” is, and regaling everyone with glorious whale stories from the past. After about 2 hours of listening to that I had heard enough.
Now I’m not blaming the tour operator necessarily. To our guides defense he was nice and informative as well. I do also know that the ocean is big and you can’t simply make whales appear, or make them breach or show themselves when they are in the area. I totally get all of that.
Perhaps never having seen whales up close before and being on my first whale watching tour led to unrealistic expectations, but to say my tour today was a disappointment would be an understatement.
Kayaking With Killer Whales
I had only made arrangements to stay in Victoria for 5 days (Sun-Fri). Whale watching out of Victoria was supposed to be the appetizer, THIS was the main entrée. The whole centerpiece of my stay on Vancouver Island was to be around me heading up island to a place called Telegraph Cove.
My intention was to book a 2 day overnight sea kayak adventure with killer whales! There are also various other species of whales, bears, eagles, dolphins, harbor seals, sea otters, etc. And we’d camp out overnight on a remote beach with a guide. This is epic bucket list type stuff right here! I have been so excited about doing this for some time now.
Sometimes It Sucks To Be Tall
I had been trying for weeks to make this happen. There is a very small handful of outfitters offering these types of trips, and I’m here in August which is also the best time of year – prime time for Orcas.
The outfitter I was trying to work with did not feel that they could accommodate someone of my size comfortably. With the kayaks they use they said anyone over 6’2″ is uncomfortable! I found that hard to believe and extremely limiting on their part. Are you telling me nobody over 6’2″ can go kayaking on your tour?
I don’t consider myself a kayaker but I have kayaked before…albeit in a solo kayak, not in a tandem touring sea kayak they’d be using. A lot of conversations took place back and forth when I was back staying in Seattle. I even had them tell me the model of kayak they use, and then I tracked down a couple different kayak tour operators in Seattle to attempt to see if I could sit in one of their kayaks to find out for myself.
Although I couldn’t find the exact model, I did sit in a couple kayaks to compare fit. Now these models were still quite a bit bigger than the ones I’d ultimately be using but I was surprised how well I did fit. After a few more back and forth conversations, they did say the decision was up to me obviously but ultimately ended up talking me out of it.
Another tour operator said they could accommodate me but didn’t have the availability. This is also sadly one of the problems when you want maximum flexibility and don’t plan anything further out than maybe 2 or 3 weeks.
Swimming Upstream
In the end, it came down to the fact that it is a 6 hour drive from Victoria to get there. I’d have to make hotel arrangements the day before and after the kayak trip, likely take a couple days off work, plus the expense of the tour which wasn’t cheap. It was going to be a pretty expensive endeavor with the likely possibility of being extremely uncomfortable the entire time – at best.
I did respect the outfitters honesty in dealing with me. I would’ve hated to go through all the effort and expense to be surprised with an extremely uncomfortable and disappointing situation. Despite all that, I almost decided to still do it because I wanted to so badly. In trying so hard to make something work it just felt like I was swimming upstream.
I’ve learned in recent years that when things aren’t aligning and I feel like I’m swimming upstream – sometimes it’s okay to let go and wait for the currents to change direction. This one was difficult to let go. I guess that gives me yet another reason to come back! In the meantime, the disappointment is very real.
New Blog Name?
Between the crotchety old man rants, the plain old rants, the disappointing excursions, and the frustrating failed planning attempts I may need to change the name of this blog to The Grumpy Traveler!
So Now What?
I’m feeling pretty defeated after my disappointing whale watching experience and my inability to arrange the kayak with killer whales adventure on the north end of the island.I didn’t have a backup plan. I also didn’t have any place to stay for the weekend and I quickly found out that it was also a Canadian holiday weekend. It’s also Thursday night and I have to check out of my current place tomorrow at 11 am. Desperate planning is never good planning in my experience.
I wanted to try to go to Tofino, a small coastal town on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island. Plenty to do there including beautiful beaches, hiking, the Pacific Rim National Park, West Coast Trail, etc. No rooms available anywhere except for a shared dorm type situation.
Since it was the weekend and I didn’t have to worry about working I was willing to do that. I thought it might add to the adventure. But it’s a 4.5 hour drive from Victoria and before I booked that I encountered another problem. I needed to reserve a ferry off the island on Sunday.
I had anticipated catching a ferry out of Nanaimo, up the eastern coast a couple hours north of Victoria. That would make it easier and less driving coming back from Telegraph Cove (Or Tofino in this case). The only ferry I could reserve for Sunday was out of Victoria however.
So Tofino is out. That’s just too much driving for essentially a very short weekend. The ferry situation really dictated that I had to stay in or very near to Victoria.
That also rules out a potential option 3. Go further up the eastern coast to Campbell River. My sister suggested doing something she did when she was there years ago – snorkel with salmon! That sounds strange, but she said it was a lot of fun. I’m finding that some of these odd adventures do make for some of the most memorable experiences.
I could probably still head up to Nanaimo. As it’s less than 2 hours away from Victoria. There are some intriguing options there. Snorkel with harbor seals for example. It would still be a lot of driving and I’m now really feeling defeated – and tired.
I feel like my best course of action is to stay in Victoria. Still a ton of stuff I could do here. Now I’m really wishing I had booked my current accommodations for the entire week, but it was now already booked for the weekend. Not many other options so I jumped on the 1 decent option I saw.
This week on Vancouver Island isn’t exactly working out as I had intended. I still need to figure out what to do with my weekend – but first I need to move across town.