Captain's Tour - Salish Sea Marine Sanctuary

Our Captain’s tour of the Salish Sea Marine Sanctuary is akin to a "friends & family" experience in the Salish Sea.

We depart from Sidney (25 minutes north of Victoria) at 11:00 am and are typically out on the ocean for 6 to 8 hours. There is no set agenda but to enjoy the beauty of the Gulf Islands and the San Juan Islands.

Upon departure we monitor whale activity. If the whales are within reasonable proximity we will iclude whale watching as part of the tour. If whale watching is, however, your primary purpose of going out we would instead guide you to our public tours.

While we routinely come across all manner of wildlife on our tours - sea lions, porpoise, seals, dolphins, pelagic birds, otters and whales - our primary focus is sightseeing and coastal exploration.

For border security reasons we will not pull in to port in to any of the San Juan Islands, however, we will pass through the San Juans.

There will be options to stop at any number of the Canadian Gulf Islands to explore, eat, and experience island culture and a few island wineries.

Gulf Islands BC

coast line gulf islands

salish sea sunset

Salish Sea Marine Sanctuary

Humpys, Orcas, Stellars and California Sea Lions all in one afternoon

Every day is a unique adventure out on the Salish Sea but today’s trip stood out. We launched at Pedder Bay Marina in Metchosin to place us close to Race Rocks. As the California and Stellar Sea Lion bulls were entertaining us from their perches on the rock formations we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by a dozen or so of these mamoths swimming, diving and porpoising. Then the incredible happened. One of the stellars suddenly sprang out of the water not 40 feet from us with a huge salmon which it had just caught as it breached the surface. The salmon was squirming it the sea lion’s mouth. Just as quickly as the stellar had surfaced he dove again and repeated this motion 2 more times. All the while a dozen or so of his very excited mates were porpoising almost in unison as a group. In 12 years being out here on the ocean that was a first for me. This was just the begginning of our adventure. We had heard reports of 4 to 6 humpbacks in the general vicinity over the past week. As we networked with our colleagues we heard 6 transient orcas were nearby. We spent a bit of time enjoying the orcas before heading out in the direction of the shipping lanes where soon we spotted 4 humpbacks. They put on quite a show for us including some excellent tail flukes. The humpbacks were also very vocal. All this in the space of 4 hours on one of those special autumn days when the seas were calm and the sun was out.