My Belle Lu-Lu

Today we did a boat tour to view the marine life. I've done a number of such boat tours before, in Maine, Newfoundland and California, but this one was over the top. We took a tour with the Lu-Lu Belle, skippered by Captain Fred Rodolf, who as been running this particular tour for 30 years (over 3900 tours so far), and designed the ship he captains.

He's an interesting character with an sardonic sense of humour and an amazing ability to rattle on in an informative and entertaining manner while simultanously steering the boat and scanning the horizon for marine life. He guarantees a minimum tour of 5 hours, and he reserves the right to extend it based on what he finds. We happened to hit the jackpot for marine life; our tour was 8 and a half hours, from 2PM to 10:30. The encountered with whales were never rushed, I think the tourists tired of it before he did, and his attitude was summed up on the way back when he detoured to get close to a Bald Eagle on shore when he commented: "We'll we're so late as it is, we might as well go over and take a look." It's inspiring to see someone who, still doing this after 30 years, is exhibits a such youthful excitement and enthusiasm for his work.

So on our tour we saw Sea Otters, Bald Eagles, Puffins, Orcas (Killer Whales), Sea Lions, Humpback Whales, and Dall Porpoises, and of course, getting as close as we could to the Columbia Glacier. The Orcas seemed somewhat ambivalent to our presence, but one got so close to the boat, if you could reach down it seemed you could almost touch it. The humpbacks were impressive, at one point we got close to three of them travelling together. One of the highlights were the porpoises. Once they noticed the boat, they immediately headed towards it, and like huskies, felt compelled to lead the way. They were crazy, the four of them would stay just ahead of the bow and dart left and right, occasionally doing a roll or surfacing for air. I could not help but laugh the entire time, joining in in their exuberance. Carole sitting beside Captain Fred, said it was like watching people watching a ping-pong tournament, heads racing back and forth following the flurry of action.

Stepping on shore, we decided to dine out and went to a restaurant serving fresh Halibut and Salmon, but by 10:30 we were so ravenous that we hoovered it down without giving it due appreciation.

We both had a hard time falling asleep, our minds still racing with images of all we had seen on this incredible day. We finally solved the problem by counting porpoises.....