Something truly extra-ordinary ...

Yesterday after attending the worship service at St Columba Anglican/United Church in Port Hardy, the kids and I (along with thier only boy cousin), went to the Whale Museum alongside the Stubb's Island Whale Watching Tours in Telegraph Cove - south east of Port McNeill.

It was a very neat place to visit. Inside a rebuilt, and expanded old net loft building, they've gathered a wide variety of skulls, bones, exhibits and skeletons of marine wildlife found all over the coast. From the ceiling hangs an enormous Fin Whale Skeleton - it was the victim of a cruise ship in 1999, when it got stuck on the bow of a Cruise ship and was found when it pulled into the Port of Vancouver - I remember the newpaper stories, and always wondered what happened to it ... Yesterday I found out.

They have skulls from Sperm Whales, and Orcas, skeletons of Sea Lions, seals and every porpoise imaginable ... it was a good place to gain an appreciation of the large mammals with whom we share this corner of the world ... We spent a couple of hours wandering around checking out the displays in the museum. Then we walked up and down the Board Walk (Telegraph Cove is an old fishing and logging community built on a board walk - today it is a high end resort community for fishing, sight seeing and vacationing), then we headed home.

On the way we stopped and had a visit with our friends Uni and Melody from Bella Coola. They are in Port McNeill waiting for the next fishing opening, so they can take their boats out and try for the big pay off ... We had visited with them a couple of weeks ago when they were in Hardy - yesterday we sat on their boat in McNeill and had a good chat about life, the cosmos and fishing ...

Then it was a "fast" trip home ... road construction ensured it took almost an hour to get from Port McNeill to Port Hardy ...

But after supper came the second highlight of the day ... while we were doing dishes I noticed the lingering cloud of a whale spray over the reef. I then saw what I thought was a dorsal fin of an Orca - WRONG !!!

Turned out it was a Humpback whale in the bay !!!!!

Dishes were interupted while we dashed down to the beach and watched for about 30 minutes while the whale played, swam and generally frolicked in the bay out in front of the reef in front of the house. No full body breaches, but a few glimpses of the jaw poking out of the water like a huge whitish black triangle, lots of good views of the back surgacing and sinking, and a wonderful glimpse of a glistening black tail stuck out of the water. It was thrilling ...

Last week's quick glimpse of Orcas off the reef was great - last night's show by the humpback whale was truly breath-taking.

It may not seem like THAT big a deal to many people - afterall, we are on the west coast and there are whale watching tours all over the place - but in my mother in law's almost 8 decades of existence, the last two years are the first time she ever remembers seeing the BIG whales right in Hardy Bay ... Orcas have come in, but since the whaling days of the west coast, the big whales have not been seen on the inner coasts, nor in bays like Port Hardy's.

It is a momentous event ... it is truly something extra-ordinary !!!!