| Kayaking
Trips:
kayaking trips in the news
Hey, Jonah, are you in there? By Diane Cole
www.usnews.com
In calm water rippled by the late summer drizzle, we kayaked past
sea lions, porpoises, and countless jumping fish and gazed at white
and gray seabirds fluttering overhead. With each stroke of the paddle,
I heard and felt the sway of the water. At the same time, I was
struck by what I did not hear or feel: the racket of engines and
the vibrations of motors. Our whale-watching trip was underway.
My 15-year-old son and I had just one question: Where's Willy?
Our previous whale-watching trek, three years earlier, provided
instant gratification--but at a possible cost to the whales. Inspired
by the movie Free Willy, Edward and I boarded a catamaran that zipped
us north from Boston to prime whale-watching waters in about an
hour. We thrilled to high white sprays of water in our wake, even
as we tried to decide how best to use our hands: hold the nose to
cut off exhaust fumes or cover our ears to block the engine's thrum?
Our excitement at spotting an abundance of sea mammals overshadowed
worries about any negative effects caused by the motor or fuel.
After all, the helpful guide (quick! at five o'clock! another minke
whale!) assured us the crew took care not to harm or frighten the
creatures. Anyway, wasn't whale-watching itself an environmentally
friendly activity?
See Willy. The answer, I've learned since, is "not necessarily."
The exponential growth of whale-watching as a tourist business--it
is a billion-dollar industry that increased in popularity at a rate
of 12.1 percent a year throughout the 1990s, according to the International
Fund for Animal Welfare--has a downside. Several studies cite whale-watching--along
with pollution, whale hunting, and the noise from military patrol
boats--as major threats to the well-being of orcas. One concern
is that boat traffic will interfere with normal behavior, says Erin
Heskett, senior program officer for the wildlife and habitat department
at IFAW. "Noise may mask important communications among the
whales about feeding, migrating, avoiding predators."
Which is why, this past summer, my son and I went in search of a
different way to observe Willy's orca relatives: We would sea kayak
near a whale hangout, limiting as much as possible any disturbances
to them or their habitat.
Our destination was Johnstone Strait, Vancouver Island, British
Columbia, home base of about 200 orcas. The distinctive families,
pods, and clans have been roaming these waters for the past 10,000
years or so. At Robson Bight, they rub their bellies against the
rocks. The Canadian government has declared the area an ecological
preserve off limits to humans. In other areas, the guideline is
to come no closer than 100 meters--about 330 feet--to the whales.
Further making sure we would keep a respectful distance was WeGo
Kayaking, the conservation-minded outfitter with whom we booked
our trip. Their ecolodge--a snug, wooden houseboat where electricity
is generated by solar power--was our base for four days of kayaking
through inlets and fiords. The cost was about $900 a person. Before
signing up, I made sure their guides were well trained not just
in kayaking but in first aid--and in whale-watching guidelines.
"Keeping a distance is important for the kayaker's safety as
well," says Ryan Moore, director of training and education
for the International Ecotourism Society. You don't want to provoke
a whale.
Taxi! Getting there was itself a trek. We flew from urban Vancouver
to the small fishing town of Port Hardy, rode to the even tinier
outpost of Port McNeill, and then hopped a water taxi to remote
Maggy Point. Our journey removed us, by stages, from city bustle
to serene countryside to a watery calm presided over by shifting
clouds that mixed mist and sun.
Brian Danyliw, founder of WeGo Kayaking, and his wife, Ann, greeted
us and promptly showed off their "wide-screen TV": the
floating cabin's sliding glass door, which opens upon a splendiferous
view of cedar forest, rippling waters, and lichen-splattered rocks
whose green-blue-yellow-gray-brown colors are constantly in flux,
depending on the tides, clouds, sun, and moon.
The key to finding whales was to listen to a shortwave radio channel
I came to think of as whale-watch central: orca spottings from marine
biologists, whale monitoring groups, and kayakers like us. They
aim to alert whale-watchers and to ward off boats veering too close
to the preserve or aggressively following whales outside the preserve.
Ecofriendly whale-watching can be a bit frustrating. We would paddle
in the vicinity of the whale reports, pick a spot, and stay still.
On Days 1 and 2, we saw a bear cub foraging among the trees on a
rocky ledge, several eagles, gulls, herons, and seals--but no whales.
Their routes and ours had not yet coincided.
That began to change on our third day. Radio callers reported numerous
orcas about 5 miles from the lodge. Off we went. As we settled on
a rocky beach, we took out binoculars and proceeded to watch--and
watch. By midafternoon, about a half a mile way, across the strait,
a spectral spray appeared. And then another. And the merest hint
of a fin. And that was it. For that day, anyway.
But our patience paid off. The next day we sat in kayaks and watched
first one, then two, then three and four orcas spray and swim and
surface and dive across the strait. One hundred yards away, with
no noisy engines to drown it out, we could hear the whoosh of air
and spray. For an hour or more, we watched them make waves as they
surfaced and dived and flapped their mighty tails, even as we did
our best not to make the slightest ripple. After all, we knew who
lived here, and who was just visiting.x
More information about whale-watching kayak trips is at www.usnews.com
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