Short Trips
This town on the west coast of Vancouver Island is literally at the end of the road.
By Jeff Larsen | April 20, 2006
Convergence Zone
With the start of National Whale Watching Week March 25, I booked a three-hour gray whale cruise with high hopes. While I didn't see magnificent acrobatics, I spent time watching a gray whale and her calf feeding near Whidbey Island and learned a bit about the enduring creatures.
By Katherine Sather | April 3, 2006
We've paddled our kayaks to Little Kaikash Beach on Vancouver Island and are sitting on the rocks eating lunch when one of the guides shouts: "Whales!"
A group of orcas appears in the distance, then another and another, rolling, splashing, black and white, the big dorsal fin of the males knifing the waters of Johnstone Strait.
By Linda Hagen Miller | August 19, 2004
Short Trips
J Pod just happened to be "home" that day as our guide and water taxi driver, Brad Armstrong, steered his 28-foot Eagle Craft boat into the calm waters off Pender Island in the southern Gulf Islands.
A half-dozen whale-watching excursion boats -- and one University of Washington research boat -- crisscrossed the bay to try to get the best vantage point to watch the 26-member pod of orca whales fraternize and feed.
By Jeff Larsen | July 29, 2004
CAMANO ISLAND It's tough to compete with Mother Nature.
At last year's Camano Island Studio Tour, held annually over Mother's Day weekend, visitors rushed past artist Diane Hill's studio shouting:
"Is this the place with the gray whales?"
Yes, it was. The migrating pod was frolicking off Hill's bluff that overlooks Saratoga Passage. In previous years, eagles stole the thunder.
By Sherry Stripling | April 22, 2004
NEAH BAY -- As you look out at Tatoosh Island from the tip of Cape Flattery, all of the continental United States lies behind you. Gulls glide past on the breeze, and the waves foaming the rocks far below heighten the illusion that you're sailing into the gray sea.
From this northwesternmost point in the lower 48 you can lean into the wind and imagine you're on the prow of the nation, crashing westward into the Pacific.
By Andrew Engelson | November 20, 2003
Birders' Top Spots
Location: Anacortes.
Habitat: A 200-acre, family-friendly municipal park with cedar, fir and madrona forest, grassy bluffs and boulder-strewn coastline.
Best seasons for birding: Good birding year-round.
November 6, 2003
Short Trips
SOOKE, B.C. Fall is definitely in the air on the southwest shore of Vancouver Island.
As the early evening sun angled sharply through the towering trees near the entrance to the Country Cupboard Cafe just west of Sooke, owner Jennie Vivian stopped our conversation about her cute chaletlike building and gestured toward the window behind me. The sunlight, she said, looked different somehow. To her the change in the light was the first sign of fall, regardless if the calendar indicated it was only late August.
By Jeff Larsen | September 11, 2003
Short Trips
TOFINO, B.C. -- Late in the evening, a bright orange Zodiac, full of whale watchers sitting at attention in orange survival suits, throttles down as it glides into its Tofino moorage.
Shortly afterward, a floatplane, highlighted by the golden light of the late sun, turns on final approach and gently sets down in the harbor.
The same light creates a mosaic from the wave and paddle action of two kayakers as they dash across the harbor from Vargas Island toward their moorage at a small dock at the west end of town.
By Jeff Larsen | May 8, 2003
Certain life experiences are magical the first time around. Kayaking in the dark is one of them.
The sun has long since set. A half-moon begins its ascent in the east, and high, wispy clouds dim the stars.
Our group silently puts on paddling gear and eases into kayaks. Three of the group of seven are neophyte kayakers; the rest have limited experience. But we all have one thing in common: This is our first night paddle and, though eager, we also are somewhat anxious.
By Jeff Lukovich | April 3, 2003
