Recently near Island View Beach, south of the parking lot, near the cliffs, my wife and I had just seen our favourite otter climb out onto a rock and eat a small eel and dive back in.
A couple of the usual crab boats were working down to the southeast, but around Gordon Head came a strange convoy of boats, moving slowly and headed north. When they got up to D’Arcy Island, they all started milling around and at some point I saw a big spray into the air. Then a roll of something big, a whale, and I knew that they were whale watchers.
A few more boats arrived. This flotilla followed the whale all the way up to the cliffs at the south end of James Island. After a while, they started milling around again but there didn’t seem to be any whale. A couple of the boats left, back towards Sidney and the crab boats never did join in.
Moments later, the whale breached and was headed south. The boats also spotted it and they took off after the whale as fast as their engines would go, rooster tails in back and spray in front.
They drove the animal into Cordova Bay, where once again they milled around. After a while, your heart sinks and you just can’t watch any more.
I don’t have the authority to revoke the licenses of these whale watchers, but if I had been the commander of a gun emplacement on shore, I would have been sorely tempted to sink every last one of them.
Jim D. Gillespie
North Saanich