2026 Cruise to Northern B.C.

I haven't posted too much about our cruising, but I was just going through some photos that I hadn't organized from our 2026 cruise.  I found the pods of Pacific White-sided dolphins fun to watch, so I thought I would share.  Dolphins often will "bow ride" on a boat for awhile, but we seem to attract a lot of them.  Maybe our speed is not too fast, not too slow.  A school will be a mile away, barely visible, and change their course to intersect ours.  

We are usually on the lookout for whales, who sometimes don't change course, so we have to change ours.  One of the things I like to do with whales is get on a parallel course and then count the number of seconds between the spouts.  That way, instead of filming for over a minute to get a good picture, I can tell within a few seconds when and where they will appear again.  In this first video, I'm starting my counting as it is going down.  You can double click to get a full size screen and then hit escape to, well, escape.

I counted 74 seconds until it spouted again.  Then I can count 72 seconds and start filming.

Don't have to do that with dolphins.  Here comes a big pod making a bee line to intersect our course.  No need for a course correction, as they are plenty acrobatic to stay out of the way and join in with us.

I can't imagine that we just happen to be going where they are going.  Some say they like the effect of the boat's bow and makes their swimming easier.  I have a different theory.  They are pack hunters and tend to ambush schools of herring, smelt, etc.  I think the boat makes a nice big disturbance for bait fish and the dolphins just watch what the boat scares up and then chase out to the side to feed.  The boat is effectively a bird dog.  On the other hand, the do seem to find travelling alongside a fun activity.

I think these videos are all the same pod, but this would happen several times a day.  Good fun.

This year, every wolf we saw was "driftwood" colored.  Kind of hard to spot from any distance.

And the grizzley's were all the color of rockweed, also called "old man's firecrackers" if you've ever played with them.  The rockweed, not the grizzleys.

That's our boat in the background.