Annettes consolation visit day 4

Well it was another beautiful in paradise. Not the sunniest day but was warm and the ocean was calm. We started off with a visit to see my grand daughter and wife in Langford. Adam was on his way out to work and we got to watch Gwen take about 4 steps all on her own. She stood up on her own and then after making sure she had her balance she started walking then fell on her bum. We cheered then she showed off her huge grin! We waited there for Albert and Nina to show up then all piled in one car to go tend to the whales. Captain Ron gave us a great deal as usual and we got dressed and piled onto the boat to start our adventure. The whales were very close to Victoria so instead of a 45 minute ride to San Juan Islands and an hour viewing and a long ride back we had a 10 minute boat ride to where we saw our first whale. The whales were actually heading east toward Victoria and there were only about 6 other boats out there so there was plenty of room on the ocean. We followed different groups around and at one point lost the whales only to have them surface about 10 feet from the boat startling most of the passengers. Then we went over to Race Rocks to view the 100's of seals all fighting for a piece of turf and then it was off towards Victoria where Captain Ron was pretty sure there were some Orcas and no other boats. We spotted them then after 2 tries we got up in front of them shut off the motor and had them surface on both sides of the boat. You could see them as they went under the boat as they rolled on their side to look up at us hanging over the side of the boat looking down at them. This was one of the most memorable times out as we had over 2 and a half hours of actual viewing of the whales and got to see them so close! I took over 800 photos and just quickly grabbed a few to put up here for you to see.