Day 7 - A fantastic finale from the Great Bear Rainforest

We were back on the Zodiacs at 7:30am and going towards the main river, slowing to see a wonderful sight – a row of seals lying in various positions on the surface of the water. Well actually they were sitting on rocks or trees that were just covered by the water. Very cute! (photo at LINK).

We tried, unsuccessfully, to find bears in the quiet stream to the left of the main river. The tide was low and navigation difficult, so we “beached” the Zodiacs, climbed out onto the land and walked back to the spot we’d been at yesterday.

Far ahead we could see a grizzly in the water – it was a long way off, and caught one fish, then lost it. The bear went out of sight behind the tree roots while we waited and watched. Gulls and eagles flew above us, landing on river rocks and then taking off again – the variety of sounds from these birds was beautiful. Another grizzly appeared way off in the distance, went into the river and then climbed out on the other side - a close look at my photos later, showed that it had a cub.

After an hour or so, Brian and Emily checked to see if we could catch a glimpse from another angle. Unfortunately this wasn’t going to work – but Brian doesn’t give up easily. We went back into the Zodiacs to see how far up the shallow side stream we could go. It was African Queen time again – Brian and Mark slowly and quietly dragging us forward.

Now we could hear soft grunting sounds coming from the dense bushes and trees to our left – bear cubs! Ever so quietly the black bear mother that we’d seen the previous evening, emerged and walked purposefully away from her cubs. They continued to grunt and mew, calling out for her attention. Whether this was a decoy, or whether she hadn’t realised that they weren’t following her, we can’t know. Suddenly she turned in their direction and hurried towards them. And that was the last we saw – they were hidden deeply under the trees and bushes. A very safe den for them all.

It was now time to get back to the Island Roamer - Brian had invited four Park Rangers from the BC Parks & Recreation Service for a morning coffee and some of Josh’s yummy food. It was good to meet them and learn about the work they’re doing, and they had the opportunity to learn why we were there, and what we’d been seeing.

Once they left, we were on our way to our last anchorage for this trip, an 8 hour journey to just outside Bella Bella, well south of Mussel Inlet. Between moments of going out on the bow and enjoying the magnificent views, this provided time to catch up with blog posts and photos until we dropped the anchor in yet another beautiful location. It was now time for the “great sea otter hunt.”

These are such cute animals, but hard to see and even harder to photograph. Although their heads pop up on the surface, when you get close enough, they tend to roll over and dive, just as you get sharp focus! We followed a few but they were elusive and when found, were camera shy. Then close to an island on the Pacific coast we found the cutest sea otter that seemed to love the attention we lavished on him (apparently they are mostly male at this time of year - not that this is meaningful in terms of photography). He didn’t care about the shutters clicking away, the six large and various small lenses trained on him, and the noisy motors on the zodiacs. Down he’d go to search for food, popping up close by with a sea urchin, or a Geoducks (pronounced gooey-duck) clam – or coming up to wash (including under his arms) and to fluff up his fur.

Finally it was time for us to go, leaving him to be a part of the resurgence of sea-otters that are bringing back ecological balance to the oceans in this region.

What a wonderful farewell to an amazing week of beauty, joy and fun, learning about trust between us and animals, increasing my photography skills (we’ll see what Sue says) and meeting new friends.

There is much for me to reflect on. Life on the Island Roamer has been great. The crew have been so helpful with everything from learning about the places we’ve visited and the many animals we’ve seen. They’ve kept the yacht running as it should, helped us get off and on, answered our numerous questions, helped me clamber around on rocky and muddy paths, and up and over (and under) fallen tree trunks. And the food has been delicious – every meal, and every snack!

My cabin has been perfect, with my own openable window – at night I heard occasional sounds as fish “plopped” out of the water. Again on our last night, I heard whale blows as I lay on my bed – it just doesn’t get better than this!

Some of my photos from the Great Bear Rainforest can be seen at this LINK.