As we've mentioned before, we've had some great weather on our holiday so far. Virtually every day we've been given bright blue skies, or the occasional shower that quickly dispersed. Today was the day that our luck ran out.
Waking up to a rainy start, we headed down to the marina to check in with our tour guide for the day. We were given some rainproof leg covers, and were divided into three groups, ours consisting of eleven people, and led to our boat. Thankfully our boat was covered.
The boat led us towards Knight Inlet. On the way, we were able to see the blowback and tails of humpback whales in the far distance. We also spotted a black bear chewing on some bark at the water's edge.
We arrived at an estuary within Knight Inlet where, after obeying orders to eat as much of the provided food as possible, we were led onto the next boat. This boat wasn't covered. It was a flat-bottomed boat with a small raised viewing platform. It was very exposed, and we would be spending the day on there in still-worsening weather!
We were pushed up the shallow estuary waterway by our two guides who were wearing waders. This was to avoid scaring any wildlife with engine noise. The start of the tour was promising as we spotted a group of grizzlys (presumably a mother and cubs) at the far shore of the estuary. We gradually made our way forward, but unfortunately this was the last we'd see of them.
Instead, we had the other wildlife to watch - mainly seagulls and bald eagles eating carcasses of salmon, as well as a few lingering live ones which could be seen in the water. Randomly, one of our tour guides tried to catch one of the salmon in her arms and surprised herself by succeeding!
As we got further towards the end of the accessible waterway, some deer emerged from the woods followed by a surprise - a wolf! At one point, one of the deer we'd been watching calmly grazing suddenly bounded across the field, shortly followed by a single wolf that tried (and failed) to catch it. Thankfully the wolf stayed behind for a while and even tried jumping into the air to catch a low flying crow (again unsuccessfully, unsurprisingly). It was close enough to get some photos, but far enough for us to be cursing our camera's paltry 16x zoom!
As we got further towards the end of the accessible waterway, some deer emerged from the woods followed by a surprise - a wolf! At one point, one of the deer we'd been watching calmly grazing suddenly bounded across the field, shortly followed by a single wolf that tried (and failed) to catch it. Thankfully the wolf stayed behind for a while and even tried jumping into the air to catch a low flying crow (again unsuccessfully, unsurprisingly). It was close enough to get some photos, but far enough for us to be cursing our camera's paltry 16x zoom!
As it got late, and without any further bear sightings, we were led back to the first boat. We had been stood out in the pouring rain for the past 5 hours so were happy for bit of shelter. We had a very brief stop off at a tiny marina on one of the islands to refuel, and shortly after we were back at Telegraph Cove just in time to see the first bit of sun of the day... just before sunset.
We were a bit disappointed not to see any grizzly bears up close today, but the (apparently very rare) sighting of the wolf made up for it. We were even given a voucher for a free day (with no expiry date), which will give us even more of an excuse to return to Canada one day!
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