Puget Sound Vacation Vol. III Canadian Edition

Early in the morning my mom incessantly said, "Steeeeeve honey time to wake up."
"Ummm....arrggg....It must be 6 AM mom."
"Actually here it is 5 AM we're in the Pacific Time Zone. I wanted to leave early to beat the rush hour traffic."
"Arrgggggg." THUD! I rolled out of bed. "Alright I'll get ready."

After appearing that I was awake by taking a shower and dragging a comb through my hair, we got in the car and headed for Port Angeles, Washington. Here there is a ferry that takes mainly tourists across to Canada. None of this was on my mind as I lulled off to sleep again. I finally awoke again when the car changed speeds and my mom told me she was getting gas. Already the sun decided to greet the day and my eyes by glinting off of anything remotely reflective. "Only one more hour and we'll be in Port Angeles," my mom said as I finished tapping off the gas tank.

We arrived in Port Angeles and started looking for the place to buy tickets to get across to Canada. I thought we drove around forever. Turning around once we even made a trip down a one way street! After receiving evil glares from passing cars we finally stumbled upon a sign, 'Ferry Parking $5.' "Go here mom!" We parked in a nice spot and my mom read the instructions on how to pay.
"Steve you don't have $5 do you?"
"No why?"
"You have to pay this metal container thing and there is no way to receive change back because there is no assistant or anything. I only have a $20. Let's go buy tickets and then I'll have change."

The ticket office was just off of the dock and I stopped to take pictures while my mom purchased the tickets.

She came back with one of those looks that you just know something wasn't right. "Guess what?....We'll have to bum around for three hours because we missed the ferry by 15 minutes."
"What!!!"
"It left at 7:00 and the next one doesn't leave until 10:00."
We're going to miss our whale watching tour now, I thought. This really stuck a stake through my heart. Anyone that truly knows me knows that I absolutely adore dolphins. My mom could see on my face how crushed I was and quickly pulled me out of it.
"I called the whale place and they changed the time to 11:15 for us, so don't worry okay? Let's just go eat I'm starving."

We found a little cafe and sat down. It took them forever to hand us a menu let alone prepare our food but luckily we didn't care because we had to waste time. After eating we strolled along the streets looking at all the nick nack shops. My mom found a post card of Mt. Rainier in one and filled it out until finally it was time to board the ferry.

"Please have your customs sheet ready before getting into line," bellowed a speaker every few minutes. A sign said, 'Prepare for random searches of all backpacks and bags.' We got into line, inching our way up to the end. A young customs agent waved us over to him and asked us a few questions before we could board the ferry. He sounded like a recording too I thought.
He quickly said, "Do you have any firearms, drugs, illegal plants, animals, or have a warrant for your arrest?" We both said no and he eyed our driver's licenses and then said, "enjoy Canada then!"

The ferry across takes about an hour. The last time I was on it I remember staring out into the sea hoping to see dolphins. The ferry was overpacked back then and there wasn't a place to sit for my parents but I didn't care because I was hanging over the ledge hoping to see some dolphins. (Orcas more commonly referred to as Killer Whales are actually dolphins) When I finally saw some I screamed, "Whale!" You could feel the whole ferry tip to one side as nearly everyone rushed over to where I was looking. This opened up a lot of seats and my parents and brother could finally sit down.
My mom reminded me of this and said, "If we can't find seats this time I want you to yell whale again," but there were lots of empty seats this time. I didn't see any whales this trip. Instead everyone watched two US Coast Guard boats on either side of our ferry esccort our ship out of the harbor. I thought they would just follow us a short distance but they followed us until we reached the Canadian border. Look at those machine guns! Scary how in ten years, since I was last on the ferry, our world has changed.

Like I said I didn't see any whales but I did find a seagull below me gazing at all the tourists dropping crumbs and snapped this picture.


We arrived in the Canadian port of Victoria City as I was taking pictures of all the ships and buildings. We had to go through Canadian Customs now. They just wanted to see our driver's licenses and quickly let us through. After that we had to rush over to the whale watching tour place. This would be about all we would have time for. The whale watching tour was four hours long and the last ferry back to the United States was at 4:00 giving us only about an hour to stroll around Canada once we got back from the whale watch.

My mom and I adorn our whale watching suits.


The whale watching expedition was incredible!!!!!!!!! I could write another 5 pages just about that experience but I'll save my blog audience from that and just tell you about one amazing encounter.

We were next to a pod of about 5 orcas. One came to the surface, sprayed her spray and then turned straight towards our zodiak. She was right under the surface. I could reach out and touch her if I wanted to and then she swam underneath our boat. Everyone including me screamed in excitement. This was so incredible that I forgot to take pictures but thinking back on it now I'm glad I didn't because I'd rather have this memory then to have looked through a view finder losing the experience.

Another zodiak next to us ooos and awws over an orca next to their boat. This is how close we got to the whales.














Look Whale!

The whale watching tour was definitely a huge highlight of my entire trip. Our whale watching tour guide was a great guy. He was Canadian and would launch our zodiak over huge waves making me bounce out of my seat. Oh it was great! He had his commentary too, explaining the blah blah blah of blah blah about everything whale. I especially liked the speaker that he turned on so we could hear the orcas clicking away, eh.

Once the whale watching tour was finished my mom and I picked up a few Canadian shirts and then boarded the ferry back to Port Angeles.

Coming up in Puget Sound Vacation Vol. IV, Sea Kayaking and going to the Pacific Ocean!