Orcas of Vancouver Island

Transcription

1 January Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America Published since 1989 Orcas of Vancouver Island Orcas, the largest members of the dolphin family, are warm-blooded, breathe air, possess lungs, and give birth to live young and nurse them. Like humans, orcas are mammals, and at the top of their respective food chains. The waters off Vancouver Island are home to orcas, or killer whales. Orcas were first referred to as whale killers by sailors who witnessed their ferocious attacks on larger whales, not because they harm humans but because they kill other whales. This name evolved to killer whales. Orcas are no longer hunted by whaling ships or shot for poaching salmon. Though orcas are now protected by regulations, their numbers continue to dwindle. Researchers and environmentalists are getting some orca habitats closed to human interference. The public is slowly being educated about the value and the rights of all living creatures. One of the best places to see and photograph orcas in North America is located in the narrow strait between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia. The Johnstone Strait is ideal for whale watching and orca photography. I recently traveled north through some of the most spectacular landscapes in the Pacific Northwest to photograph these magnificent creatures of the sea. Male and female resident orcas on the Queen Charlotte Strait

2 Issue page 2 C heck any map of Vancouver Island and you ll see that Johnstone Strait is the narrowest gap between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland. It s about seventy miles long and narrows to one-half-mile wide. Salmon heading south each summer to their spawning grounds up the B.C. and Washington State rivers are funneled through this narrow passage. Northwest of Johnston Strait is the Broughton Archipelago, filled with over a thousand islands. Some are small rocks and others are the size of Manhattan. The other side of Johnstone Strait, the mainland side, is a remote wilderness without a single road. This is grizzly bear country. Not far from Telegraph Cove is Blackfish Sound. Blackfish is another name for the Killer Whale or Orca. Up to thirty-feet in length, these mammals are scattered all over the oceans of the world, from the arctic to the equator. Orcas are known for their intelligence, their underwater communications using song patterns unique to their family or pod, and their echolocation abilities necessary to satisfy their voracious appetites. The resident orcas eat only fish, mainly salmon. Getting to Vancouver Island While you can drive all the way, it s easier to fly into Vancouver International, rent a car, follow the signs north through the city of Vancouver, cross the Lions Gate Bridge, and drive eight miles north to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal. This is the most direct ferry route from the British Columbia mainland to Vancouver Island. Flying directly into the Victoria Airport on the island is more convenient but more expensive. If you are not a Canadian citizen, you will probably need a valid passport to drive across the border or to fly into Canada. If you are flying into the city of Vancouver, you ll pass through customs and pick up your checked luggage. When you leave the terminal, cross the street and follow the rental car signs. Hertz, Avis, and most of the major operators have offices right there, across from the terminal, and their cars are lined up nearby. Approaching the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal, follow the signs indicating your destination. You ll pass through a tollbooth where they take all major credit cards. Get in the numbered lane marked on your ticket, stop, turn off your engine, and wait for the boarding announcement over the P.A. system. Once onboard, you can stay in your car or go topside and wander through the ferry for the hundred-minute crossing. There are several restaurants on board. Driving off the ferry in Nanaimo, keep to the right and head north onto Highway 19A. A few miles north of the ferry terminal is the largest shopping mall north of Victoria, plus miles of restaurants and a large selection of motels. It s a fourhour drive from Nanaimo to Telegraph Cove. Spend the night in Nanaimo and start the long drive north in the morning. Heading north, Highway 19A soon merges into Highway 19, a multi-lane expressway with lots of traffic, all the way to the port town of Campbell River, a rapidly growing community. From Campbell River northward, the population rapidly dwindles. Check your gas supply at Campbell River. It s a twohour drive to Port McNeill along a two-lane highway winding through forests and over several mountain ranges. Ragged peaks above river valleys and many small lakes along the route make this the most scenic part of the drive north. Although it was a hot July day on Vancouver Island, many of the taller peaks down the center of the island were still covered with snow.

3 Issue page 3 Telegraph Cove Gas and food are available near the small fishing and logging village of Sayward, a worthwhile side trip to the remote port of Kelsey Bay. Seventy-miles north of Sayward is a well-marked right turn onto the paved road to Telegraph Cove. This rough dirt road was finally paved, all the way to the cove, in Logging trucks use this road, so drive it with care, especially across the narrow, one-lane bridges and the railroad crossing. Logs are hauled to this area to be sorted, tied together in huge rafts and towed south to lumber mills. It s eight miles from Highway 19 to the parking area on the edge of Telegraph Cove population 20. There s no free parking at the cove. Buy a ticket and leave it on your dashboard. Along with a general store and a rental office for the cabins circling the cove, there is a small snack bar, several seafood restaurants and gift shops. I arrived about forty-five minutes early so that I could wander around the village with my camera. Small cottages perched on stilts are connected with a wooden boardwalk that circles the north side of this tiny cove named for the telegraph office erected here in Stubbs Island Whale Watching The tour office is located in the last building on the far end of the boardwalk circling the north side of the cove. The first and oldest of Vancouver Island s whale watching tour operators offers two, three-hour tours each day from May through early October. The morning tour leaves at 9:00 AM and the afternoon tour leaves at 1:00 PM. Between July 14 th and August 20 th, a third trip is added each day with a 5:30 PM departure. You ll need to make reservations several weeks in advance during summer months because every tour fills quickly, especially on clear and sunny days. A toll-free phone number is listed on their website for information and reservations. See page 12 for all contact information. A great selection of books on orcas and all the other wildlife in the Vancouver Island area can be found in the Stubbs Island Tours Office. If you forget to pack enough warm clothing, you ll find sweaters and parkas here, all with the Stubbs Island logo. Founded in 1980 by Jim and Mary Borrowman, Stubbs Island Whale Watching Tours operate two boats (above). The Gikumi is a fifty-sevenfoot, beautifully restored, wooden vessel that was built locally in 1954 to tow logs to the Telegraph Cove sawmill. Their sixty-foot, all-aluminum Lukwa was custom built as a whale-watching vessel and has been in service since I signed up for two whale watching cruises. On Thursday morning, I took a four-hour cruise on the newer and faster all-metal Lukwa piloted by Captain Jim. Photographers can get a higher camera position from the upper deck of their modern aluminum boat. Gikumi and Lukwa at the entrance to Telegraph Cove

4 Issue page 4 Humpback whale near Stubbs Island A humpback whale was slowly circling tiny Stubbs Island, a few miles offshore. It blew a tall spray into the air before raising its dorsal fin above the surface of the water. It would do this three times, reappearing about a hundred feet farther away each time. The forth time, it raised its back much higher, As it dove, its tail flukes appeared. With an mm lens, I watched the humpback from about 300 yards. With an ISO of 400, my shutter speeds were in the range of 1/2000 of a second. It s not easy to evaluate your images on your digital SLR s monitor. I always leave my overexposed highlight indicator turned on when I m working. If I see the light areas of an image blinking, I quickly delete the image and shoot another with two-thirds of a stop less exposure. With whales leaping and diving, it s not always possible to reshoot. Make a few test shots first, when you are out on the water, to fine-tune your exposure. After a half-hour of this activity, I was able to predict when the whale was ready to dive and was able to capture some better photographs. Every time it dove, it stayed down for five to seven minutes. It was difficult to predict when it would appear but usually someone else on the boat, with a good pair of binoculars, would yell nine o clock or five o clock and all the cameras would be pointed in that direction. According to Jackie, the onboard naturalist, these are the same humpback whales that winter in the Hawaiian Islands, their breeding grounds. Here, they feast on krill, tiny creatures they scoop up with huge open jaws, then close their mouths and force all the salt water out through their baleen filters, before swallowing a meal. Humpbacks have no teeth and their young are sometimes devoured by groups of transient orcas (not the locals) that will feed on seabirds, sea lions, and even deer or moose caught swimming between islands. When many harbor seals are seen clamoring onto a rocky shore, it s usually because of a nearby pod of transient orcas. The resident orcas eat only fish and prefer salmon. Even in July, it was necessary to wear a warm sweater under a waterproof windbreaker. A woolen stocking cap was warmer than a baseball cap. Pack your SPF 70 sunscreen for this trip. Glare off the water can burn you badly, even on a cold day. We saw no orcas on Thursday. Back on the pier, most of the fifty or so passengers headed straight to the coffee shop for a warm cup of something. I headed to their tiny cafe and had a hot sandwich and a cup of hot chocolate. The Bones Project In the back of the same building, housing the Stubbs Island Office, is a museum filled with the bones of every creature found in this part of Canada. From the ceiling hangs a fifty-fivefoot-long humpback whale skeleton. There are bears, eagles, orcas, cougars, dolphins, porpoise, sea lions, otters, and more. The Bones Project Museum behind the Stubbs Island Office

5 Issue page 5 The skull with the fiercest teeth belonged to a killer whale. Photographs and written information cover the walls. For a $2 donation/ entry fee, this is the best place to learn about the wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. Called The Bones Project, this facility receives donations of dead, beached whales and both common and rare sea creatures that have expired. The humpback whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling (right) was struck and killed by a passing cruise ship then dragged all the way to the city of Vancouver before it was discovered, lodged on the bow of the ship. Collected remains that have been towed to this location are securely tied to the bottom of the pier beneath the museum for up to a year. Crabs and other scavengers do a natural cleaning of the bones. Volunteer workers scrub the remaining bones clean. They are wired back together like a giant jigsaw puzzle and displayed in the museum. On the day I arrived, they were working at reassembling a stellar sea lion and a tiny groundhog, perhaps representative of a common ancestor. Friday afternoon, I signed up for a fourhour cruise on the smaller Gikumi, piloted by Captain Wayne. The wooden boat has no upper deck but has a canvas awning covering the entire rear deck. On a rainy day, the awning will be welcome. It was certainly welcome on a warm and sunny day. Orcas are spotted almost every day, starting in early July. On July 5th and 6th, 2007, none were reported anywhere in Johnstone Strait. All of the whalewatching vessels share information on sightings with other boat captains. Orca reports are also radioed from a hydrophone listening post on an island across from Telegraph Cove where researchers, who can recognize each pod by the dialect of their underwater calls and songs, know their location. Two hundred known individual killer whales, or orcas, frequent the Johnstone Strait area. These are called resident orcas. They are divided into sixteen pods. Each pod is led by the dominant female, the mother or grandmother of all others in the family or pod. Males born to a female in a pod never leave that pod. Female orcas can live for ninety years. These resident orcas eat mostly salmon and other fish that cannot hear their calls or the pops of their natural sonar locating abilities. At the bottom of the channel on the darkest night, an orca can detect and grab a passing salmon. Each must eat about seven percent of their body weight each day. A mature male orca can reach up to thirty feet in length and weigh four tons, but live for only thirty years. Transient orcas passing through the Johnstone Strait look almost identical to the residents. The six-foot-tall dorsal fins of transient males come to a point without the swept-back tip of the resident s dorsal fin (below). Transients are silent, do not eat fish, and travel in smaller pods. Using stealth, the transients catch unwary seals, sea lions, otters, and whales, and even deer and moose swimming between islands-any warmblooded mammal. DNA tests have proven that there is no interbreeding between residents and transients. Humpback skeleton Resident male orca in Queen Charlotte Strait

6 Issue page 6 Humpback whale Perhaps the residents should be called orcas and the transients should be called killer whales or more correctly, whale killers, because groups of transients can strip a humpback or a minke whale to the bone. Within the order Cetacea, including all whales, porpoises, and dolphins of the world, the killer whale reigns as the ultimate predator. Like the whales, clouds of exhaled spray reveal an orca s location while on the surface. From a distance, the tall dorsal fins of the older males identify them as orcas. Like humpback whales, orcas sometime leap completely clear of the water. Sometimes they just rise up partway out of the water to survey their surroundings. This often frightens nearby sea lions, sending them out of the water and onto the nearest rocky shore. For the past few years humpback whales have begun to take up year-round residency in the Johnstone Strait area. A single female, named Houdini, has had three offspring in the past three years. The captain of the Gikumi spotted the distant spray of this mother and calf. As our boat followed at a reasonable distance, the pair leapt from the water, spinning over on their backsides with a mighty splash. With my mm zoom extended all the way out to 400mm, I had the equivalent of a 600mm focal length lens on a 35mm camera. With an ISO setting of 640, my shutter speed was 1/3200th of a second at f 8. The auto-focus was working quickly enough to capture each leap. My only problem was anticipating exactly where each whale would leap from the water. By raising my eye from the viewfinder, I would spot their location and try to quickly move the camera into position. Sometimes that worked. Keeping my eye to the viewfinder and trying to predict where they would make their next leap shortened my response time. Sometimes that worked. I probably missed more than half of the leaps. Humpbacks are baleen whales that feed by opening their mouth to scoop up great quantities of water and plankton. All the water is forced out through a sieve called baleen and the remaining food is swallowed. They swim up to breathe on the surface and dive down to swallow food. Unless they rise up above the surface, their blowhole is below water level. Orcas have evolved with blowholes at water level. They can swim for extended periods on the surface without bobbing up and down. Because of this, it is easier to spot them by their dorsal fins. Using photographs to identify saddle markings, fin notches, and scars from injuries, a letter and number code has been given to every known orca in the area. At this time, researchers have identified only 207 known residents in the southern Vancouver Island region. Their numbers are dropping for several known reasons. Because of this, restrictions have been placed on sightseeing boats and other marine traffic in the orca s favorite haunts. Spend a night in a historic cabin or in one of the new lodgings on Telegraph Cove so that you can walk out to the edge of the cliffs to the south of the cove in the early morning and watch the first light rise over the snowcapped peaks of British Columbia s interior. A warm glow reflects from low clouds and illuminates all the intricate waterways between thousands of wooded islands. Pack more than your longest telephoto for a whale-watching cruise through the islands off Telegraph Cove. You ll want a wide-angle lens to capture the view of all of Telegraph

7 Issue page 7 Small island named White Cliffs in the Broughton Archipelago Cove as your boat passes out into the straits through the narrow channel opening framed by tall spruce and cedar. A wide-angle lens will frame the widening pattern of your boat s wake and the matching pattern of long rows of cirrus clouds moving across the sky. With a little luck, you might be able to frame a pod of orcas passing through this composition. You must be prepared for anything. Pack two cameras including a backup 35mm film camera with your shortest lens and your digital SLR with your longest telephoto. Use the largest capacity media cards you own. Keep several dry lens cleaning cloths and be ready to wipe sea spray from your lenses. I cut a large chamois into smaller pieces and keep one in every pocket of my camera bag. After taking two orca-watching cruises out of Telegraph Cove with no orca sightings, I discovered that seven orcas were spotted on their Saturday trip. On that same day, I had signed up on a different boat for a longer whale-watching cruise that headed in the opposite direction, toward the north end of Vancouver Island. Port McNeill Port McNeill, twenty minutes north of Telegraph Cove, has a population of 2,929 and a larger selection of lodgings and restaurants than Telegraph Cove. Along the road into Port McNeill are several basic budget motels and newer, larger, more upscale resorts with their own restaurants. There are several restaurants along the waterfront in Port McNeill. This town has a Greek restaurant, a steak house, and a Chinese Steller (or northern) sea lion on Stubbs Island

8 Issue page 8 restaurant. Their marine hardware store has a good supply of charts and maps of the area. I went shopping at the local market for picnic supplies for a few more days on the island. We traveled for an hour at top speed before we spotted tall dorsal fins in the distance. Captain Bill slowed as we approached. When we were in position, a hundred meters out, he cut the engines. All the side windows are closed at speed for comfort. Every time we stopped, the side windows were opened for the photographers. For the next few hours, we had dozens of orca sightings, mainly of transients heading north. It was hard to tell whether we were watching the same pod or several pods. Judging by the appearance of their dorsal fins, there were at least three mature males and many more females plus several calves. There were several times when the 400 mm setting on my mm zoom was too much and the tips of some dorsal fins were cropped off. Shooting toward the east, orcas on the surface were framed below long ranges of snowcovered peaks along the British Columbia coastline. When they appeared on the west side of the boat, the background was a much nearer evergreen forest. In several of my photos, the background was Port Hardy, northern Vancouver Island s last stop for the Alaska-bound ferry. Regulations require that vessel operators stay back one hundred meters and not approach orcas directly. We were running a parallel The Naiad Explorer Mackay Whale Watching Mackay s Whale Watching office is at the north end of Broughton Blvd, the main street through Port McNeill. From there, it s a short walk down to the pier where their Naiad Explorer is tied up. Mackay Whale Watching Ltd. operates a fast, 17-meter custom-built, Volvo diesel-powered vessel. It s very sleek and modern looking and was specifically designed for whale watching. Mackey offers four- to fivehour cruises daily from June to October with lunches provided in a heated cabin. The Naiad Explorer has an underwater acoustic listening system, called a hydrophone, that amplifies the songs of any whales or orcas swimming near the boat over a P.A. system. We heard them singing as we approached. When Captain Bill shoved off for the Saturday cruise, forty passengers were aboard. I was one of only two photographers. Most of the passengers were carrying binoculars and several were trying to use the cameras in their cell phones. We were doing over thirty knots across the wide Queen Charlotte Strait. The powerful boat was throwing up a tall roostertail in its wake. course and would stop when they stopped. After five to ten minutes of diving, spraying, and leaping from the water, the whole pod would dive in unison and disappear for an extended period. Sometimes they seemed to break up under water and head in different directions before coming to the surface. Orcas off Port Hardy on the north end of Vancouver Island

9 Issue page 9 Orcas and a passing fishing boat We spotted lots of dolphins and some Dall porpoise. By late afternoon, four hours from home, we d photographed our last orca. We continued northward for another hour beyond Port Hardy, before reaching a chain of small rocky islands. Some of the islands were covered with bald eagles, looking like flocks of seagulls from a distance. One of our best sightings of the day was a large group of northern sea lions with a few huge males sunning themselves on the highest point on each rock. The surrounding waters were filled with smaller females and young males swimming in groups of ten or so. I climbed to the top deck for a better view as they raced back and forth, leaping and spinning below our boat. The most curious of the youngest sea lions swam in tight groups (right), as close to the boat as they dared, and stared right at us, posing for photographs. It was obvious that there were no orcas in the area. We finally photographed the last sea lion. The boat s windows were closed, and we headed back toward Port McNeill at top speed. It took five hours to reach the northern end of Vancouver Island, but only one hour to return back to port. By late afternoon the thin overcast was gone and earlier breezes had calmed. The entire surface of the Queen Charlotte Strait was flat and dead calm perfect conditions for a really fast boat ride. As we approached the harbor, Captain Bill spotted a black bear with two cubs on a deserted beach. We slowed to a crawl and photographed the bear from less than a hundred feet off shore. Mother bear was scavenging dead fish from water s edge while her two cubs were wrestling in the bushes. Seasmoke Whale Watching For my fourth day of whale watching on Johnstone Strait, I chose a different tour company called Seasmoke Whale Watching. They are located in Alert Bay on Cormorant Island and pick up most of their passengers just across the channel at the Alder Bay Resort on Vancouver Island, not far from Telegraph Cove. It s a ten-minute sail across the channel. They have two boats, a choice of a powerboat or a forty-foot sailing yacht, the S.V. Tuan. Unlike the high-speed Naiad Explorer operated by the Mackay family, cruising Blackwater Sound aboard the sailboat Tuan is a peaceful experience. Depending on the winds, they may raise the sails or slowly motor down the channel. Their maximum group size is fourteen. There were seven other passengers onboard for the Sunday afternoon trip I joined. They do morning and afternoon cruises of about four hours each. Conversations with the captain or the onboard naturalist are quiet and relaxed. A light lunch is served on the way out. Hot tea and scones with cream and jam are served on the way home. Cruise aboard a sailboat when you want to use a monopod to support a long and heavy lens. Powerboats used for these tours usually vibrate too much to allow the use of a monopod. If you have a VR or IS lens, don t forget to turn it on. Steller sea lion pups off Bell Island

10 Issue page 10 The S.V. Tuan There are a few drawbacks to a sailing cruise. Being lower and closer to the water, more spray is blown up onto camera lenses. Unlike a larger, flat-bottom boat at rest, a smaller, round-bottom sailboat is always bobbing about, making hand-held exposures more difficult. If your digital SLR does not create too much digital noise, crank your ISO up to 640 or higher and use your fastest shutter speeds. A shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second can freeze an eagle flying overhead or a whale leaping from the water. You ll need fast reflexes to catch the peak of the action. Watch for the spray from an orca or a humpback whale. That s the first warning that they are about to surface. Then the creature raises its back and the dorsal fin is visible. Whales and orcas seem to do this rising up-and-down motion from three to six times as they cruise along the surface breathing, before diving again. The last upward lunge is the big one. Watch for the dorsal fin to rise much higher. When the head goes straight down, the tail flukes rise up and out of the water. That s the shot to try to capture. These are not fish but mammals and they need to breath. With lungs full of air, they can stay down for up to ten minutes. When a whale finally surfaces again, it can be nearby or too far away to see. A lot of waiting is involved for whale photography and it takes patience. The most dramatic images of breaching whales and orcas leaping from the sea are often the result of pure luck. Instead of f 8 and be there, it s 1/4000 and be there. On the way back to the Alder Bay wharf, we passed by Stubbs Island where a mature male stellar sea lion was resting on a rock and trying to recover from a recent battle with a transient orca. A large scar was visible across his chest. Kayak tours Kayaks may be the perfect vessel for an orca search. Being totally quiet must aid your search and you can go where you want. There are lots of outfitters in the Vancouver Island area. However, learning to navigate in the open ocean with an expensive camera around your neck in a narrow and tippy plastic paddle boat seems like too much for a beginner to handle. If you have some experience and want to rent a kayak, there is an outfitter in Telegraph Cove. With a tent and some camping gear, kayakers can overnight on most of the islands that are not in protected preserve areas. One of the few places in the area that is strictly off-limits to all human activity is the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve, located about ten miles southeast, down the Johnstone Strait. Boats are not allowed in the area and there is no inland access. The gravel beach at Robson Bight is a favorite rubbing spot for orcas. Orcas enjoy rubbing their bodies on underwater stones. Malcolm Island After four days on the water, I was ready for a long hike in the woods. My trail guide mentioned a five-kilometer trail along the north shore of Malcolm Island that follows the edge of Beautiful Bay. The trail, starting at Bere Point, follows a long and rocky beach to Malcolm Point. According to the guidebooks, this is the site of one of the resident orcas favorite rubbing beaches. Kayaks returning to Telegraph Cove

11 Issue page 11 At unspecified intervals, when the mood strikes them, pods of five or more orcas will gather on the edge of Beautiful Bay and submerge themselves to rub their bellies on the round, smooth granite stones along the shore. Researchers believe it s a social gathering or maybe it just feels good to rub on the rocks. Some think that the orcas are trying to rub off bothersome parasites. No one really knows why they do it. I wanted to see them gathered on the beach (right). Early Monday morning, I took the first ferry from the Port McNeill harbor for a twentyminute ride across the Broughton Strait to the harbor of Sointula, the only village on Malcolm Island. Settled in 1909 by Finnish emigrants searching for a location to develop a Utopian cooperative settlement, Sointula still has much of the flavor of the early pioneer architecture including farm buildings, boathouses, and the old co-op general store across from the ferry terminal. The island is fifteen miles long and I needed my car to be able to see it all in one day. A left turn off the ferry follows a road along most of the village s waterfront. In less than two miles, a sign marks the right turn onto Bere Road. At the top of the hill, Bere Road meets a gravel road that runs along the spine of the entire length of Malcolm Island. In mid- July, countless masses of purple and white foxglove were growing along the road. I turned left and drove west on Pulteney Point Road for one mile, to a sign marking the right turn to Bere Point Campgrounds. I drove down the hill, parked at the edge of the bay, and walked out onto a cobblestonecovered beach. The cobblestones are worn smooth and each is the size of a large potato. It appears that visitors can walk down the crescent-shaped beach, in either direction, for miles. But environmental concerns require that people (and their dogs) stay off the beach and use the well-marked inland trail. The trail starts at the far end of the campground. You can park your car at the trailhead. At several high points along the trail, wooden observation platforms and benches have been provided for watching the bay. Binoculars, or your long telephoto lens, will help scan the horizon. Just watch for the clouds of spray rising in the distance from surfacing whales or orcas. Two hours along the trail winding through a tall, second growth forest of spruce and cedar, I reached the halfway point. There, the trail descends two hundred hand-carved wooden stairs down a steep hillside to cross a bridge over a stream. On the north side of the bridge, a short, unofficial trail leads out onto Beautiful Bay Beach. Scanning the length of the bay, I saw no whales or orcas, so I walked to the edge of the Queen Charlotte Strait, and took a few photographs. I turned around and headed back to the parking lot to end my three-hour hike. To have completed the hike, all the way out to Malcolm Point and back, would have taken five hours As I was loading my camera gear back into my car, a couple reclining on folding lawn chairs at the edge of the parking lot caught my attention and pointed down the beach, in the other direction. They told me that I had missed all the action and should have been right there about thirty minutes earlier to photograph orcas along the shoreline. It was time to leave. Back in Sointula, everyone waiting to board the next ferry parks in one line along the main street through town. They scatter with their cameras or head for the grocery store or to an ice cream shop next to the ferry terminal. I had a late lunch of local fish and chips at a small diner in a trailer near the ferry terminal. Two young girls trying to sell live crabs from a bucket on the sidewalk thought that I would have no trouble getting them back to California. When a few cars appeared on the main street of town, I knew that the arriving ferry has just unloaded. It was time to return to my car for the cruise back to Port McNeill for one more night before the trip home. Have a great trip. An orca rubbing beach on Beautiful Bay, Malcolm Island

12 Telegraph Cove Internet Resources Stubbs Island Whale Watching: Mackay Whale Watching: Seasmoke Whale Watching: Telegraph Cove Resort: British Columbia Ferry Schedule: My life-long career in photography began at San Jose State University in After college, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, serving as a photographer and darkroom technician. In Germany, my skills and experience with equipment and lab work were developed and polished. I took the opportunity to photograph the beauty of nature in the Black Forest. Returning to California in 1965, I produced industrial and military training films for Raytheon Electronics and began showing my color nature prints. From 1969 through 1981, my photography was exhibited and sold in West Coast galleries. During the early 1980 s, I taught color darkroom workshops, then expanded to include field trips. Former customers, who had purchased my framed photographs, wanted to learn photography. My Pacific Image Photography Workshops offered adventures to the Pacific Coast, the Southwest deserts, national parks, Hawaii, New England, Canada, England, and the South Pacific. The workshops evolved into writing and sharing my adventures with others. Photograph America Newsletter provides information on where, when, and how to discover the best nature photography in North America. Photograph America Newsletter is published quarterly (four issues/year) by Robert Hitchman assisted by technical associate/wife, Katherine Post Office Box 86, Novato, CA Looking across Broughton Strait with a view of Port McNeill in the distance. This wrecked fishing boat sits on the south side of Sointula, the only village on Malcolm Island, a twenty-minute ferry ride from Port McNeill. All contents of this newsletter copyright Robert Hitchman Please don t make copies for your friends. This is a violation of Federal copyright laws. This newsletter survives on subscriptions.