But there was more we spent time with both California and northern sea lions at the Cape listening t

Sep 15, 2011 Hartley cheap daytona beach hotels Bay and environs: Just back to the ship after an awesome experience with a mother black bear and cubs interacting with each other and a Spirit Bear. On our way to the hot springs for an evening soak.
Spent a lot of time with the mum and her very small cubs as she taught them to catch salmon. Then, when a Spirit Bear strolled out of the forest and up the river, the mother showed her vigilence and determination. As she huffed at the Spirit Bear, she also indicated her cubs should get up a tree quickly.  The cubs spun around and ran for a tree one on the far side of the river and the other on our side, running right below us, and through a few tripods!
Mum continued to huff at the Spirit Bear, who eventually wandered away upstream, leaving the fishing spot for the bear family again. The bears climbed down from the trees and rejoined each other in the river, putting their noses together and sniffing in greeting.
Prior to all of this we spent time in mainland fjords with beautiful estuarine meadows. Saw some more bears there, and spent time becoming intimate with their rainforest world, including a fantastic bear mark or stomp trail near a rub tree.
Sep 13, 2011 Fjordland : Hello from Maple Leaf Falls (waterfall). It s warm and calm in Mathieson Channel this morning. Salmon jumping everywhere.  So far 2 black bears spotted on shore.  This morning, Salmon River lived up to its name absolutely full of pinks and chum and everyone else (aka many species of animals) in the rainforest had come out to the river to celebrate the return of the salmon.
Sep 7, 2011 Among the Great Bear Rainforest s fjords : Just got back from grizzly cheap daytona beach hotels bear viewing cheap daytona beach hotels in one of our favourite places and spent time with a male with a white patch that we know and we saw on our spring trips. Good show. Also, great crabbing. Prior to that had a great visit to Klemtu with an excellent visit/tour to the big house.
Sep 4 5, 2011 Broughton Archipelago and Cape Cautio n : Amazing day. Great transient killer whales sighting (T 143s). cheap daytona beach hotels Tons of humpback whales, and even a little humpback poo collected and brought aboard for show tell. Great hike on white sand beach.
We re on our way. Already spotted our first humpback whales. [Later] Great day with humpbacks, and the A34 and A12/36 northern resident killer whales as well as other wildlife. A great start to the trip.
Sep 1 2011 Broughton Archipelago: Yesterday after a visit to Telegraph Cove and the whale interpretive centre (aka the bones project), we spent time with a large amount of resident killer whales as they travelled Johnstone Strait to Blackney cheap daytona beach hotels Pass. A clan and I clan whales were intermingling on this beautiful evening.
cheap daytona beach hotels Since then we ve spent time with some of the Is, with spyhopping, tail slapping, with sea lions, a rainforest hike to grandmother cedar and a visit with the fantastic people at OrcaLab whale research station.
(For the whale geeks out there, here in the office where the report cheap daytona beach hotels is being posted, we believe that Maple Leaf was watching the meeting of the T46Bs with new baby and the T37s and T34s.) Some of the northern residents are around, too, so we may have a visit with them later in the day.
A hike up a salmon spawning stream (aka a bear snacking stream where the grizzlies come to eat salmon) through the rainforest to a waterfall.  At the base of the waterfall we found a pool filled with many species cheap daytona beach hotels of spawning cheap daytona beach hotels salmon. Vitality and richness in the rainforest.
And we watched not just cetaceans swimming (and breaching) but also a swimming black bear and other black bears on shore. All of these animals are connected by the richness of the sea that sustains them. A beautiful start to the trip.
Aug 26, 2011 northern cheap daytona beach hotels Vancouver Island : After a great final trip of the season in Haida Gwaii / Queen Charlotte Islands, we ve moved the ship to northern Vancouver cheap daytona beach hotels Island and the southern part of the Great Bear Rainforest. It s the season of the salmon runs the season of abundance on the coast.
After a wonderful cheap daytona beach hotels wildlife filled 157 Nm voyage under favorable conditions from Haida Gwaii to Vancouver Island we are now at safely cheap daytona beach hotels anchored for the evening. On this transit across Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound, we encountered killer whales, many mola mola (sunfish), sharks finning at the surface, humpback cheap daytona beach hotels whales, albatrosses, fulmars, shearwaters, puffins and other birds.
Aug 14 Haida Gwaii: Hi, We re sailing through humpback whale soup (also known as the ocean on the east coast of south Moresby Island).  How are you in the office today? Just received a report of more whales (Fins! this time), so will sign off now. [Then later...] Had a nice viewing of a black bear who walked the entire length of the beach at our Burnaby Narrows anchorage in the late evening light, and continues to work it, turning over rocks as it goes.
Aug 12 Haida Gwaii: A busy day for us on the Maple Leaf. A visit with sea lions. Navigating narrow and tricky (but scenic) Huston Stewart pass. Circumnavigated the Gordon Group of islands by small boats. Now to Bowles Pt and its double-beach and an anchorage out of the wind.
Aug 10 Haida Gwaii: Visited Windy Bay earlier [a famous site in the ceasing of logging cheap daytona beach hotels of south Moresby Island and the creation of the protected area], and we re now heading into Anna Harbour. An extra highlight today: we saw a huge Mola Mola [aka a sunfish].
Hi, from the gang in Haida Gwaii. We ve been wowed by clear skies and calm seas here for the last few days. Yesterday headed into a glassy Hecate Strait where we found ourselves surrounded by magnificent Fin whales. We lingered among mothers with calves lazily cruising by their sides, treating cheap daytona beach hotels us to great looks at their long backs, as they surfaced. Off this morning to see what the low tide in Burnaby cheap daytona beach hotels Narrows reveals!
We untied from the Bella Bella dock and left civilization. As the sun angled around patches of cloud, we found ourselves in the middle of a shining world: the bow s wake foamed and curled cheap daytona beach hotels on a glossy sea, and the needles of cedar, hemlock and spruce glinted green on the islands cheap daytona beach hotels we passed.
Deeper we cruised into the fjords that cut the coast mountains. We found a nursery area for pacific whitesided dolphins about 15-20 mothers and tiny young dolphins, some the size of large salmon. We entered our destination, a bay flanked by snowcapped peaks, and we explored the meadow cheap daytona beach hotels of wildflowers and some elements of the rainforest, including examples of how and where bears use it for travel, rubbing and communication. After dinner we took photographs of the silver moonlight that threw the dark mountains into relief against the lighter sky.
So began our 9-day odyssey in the Great Bear Rainforest at midsummer. We saw and experienced it all: grizzly bears waterfalls spectacular mountain vistas whales and dolphins secluded hotsprings cheap daytona beach hotels rainforest cheap daytona beach hotels trails wild west coast beaches tiny coastal communities sailing the channels on the schooner Maple Leaf.
And there were some unusual visitors as well, introduced by those old fates, the Right Place and the Right Time. As we entered a river, Kevin said, What s that? We looked: it was a Sitka black tailed deer with 4 points on its horns that hurtled across the meadow 100 metres distant, running straight toward the river leading out to the fjord (and us).
We stopped the zodiacs and immediately focussed our binoculars behind the deer. Yes, there it was the wolf. Photographers scrambled for their packed-away cameras as the two animals, in a life-or-death chase, pounded toward us.
The deer needed to get to deep water before cheap daytona beach hotels the wolf caught up. Down the shoreline they ran. The deer rain into the river. The wolf stayed on the shore longer to gain ground. They ran past us, about 30 feet away from us, about 12 feet between them. Click-click-click-click cheap daytona beach hotels went the cameras.
The deer made it. The bottom drops away quickly in these mainland inlets, from 2 feet of water to 20, then 200 and then 2000. The deer, a faster swimmer than the wolf, stroked out into the fjord, and right past the Maple Leaf as she lay at anchor. We knew it wouldn t stop until it had reached the shore at least 500 meters down the inlet and across on the other side. The wolf probably knew it, but climbed out onto a rock beside us and intently watched its progress. If the deer came back to the near shore, that wolf was going to go for it again. They were both beautiful animals, and finally we had a chance to photograph the elusive rainforest wolf. Its clay-brown eyes were startlingly bright. Its coat dark (likely a sign of young age), with peachy patches.
Later several times, we heard a pack howling back up the valley. And the wolf returned to the meadow we walked in, about a hundred feet upstream. cheap daytona beach hotels It melted into the forest and remerged a little further away, several times.
It kept an eye on us but kept its distance. Each time we spotted it, it leapt away to the next finger of trees. Sometimes it stood just on the edge, other times, just out of sight, leaving us searching with our eyes to catch its likeness, powerful in our minds but just beyond reach. Like the things we half remember from dreams.
A slide show of our trip, dinner, and a birthday cake made to look like a pirate s treasure chest were followed by passing a feather to hear each person s experience. Another wonderful Maple Leaf Adventure!
Have you ever had a natural high? As our day dawned sunny and calm, we decided to climb the Cape! [ed: Cape St. James, at the southern tip of Haida Gwaii, the meeting place of 3 great bodies of water: the Pacific Ocean, Queen Charlotte Sound and Hecate Strait.]
But there was more we spent time with both California and northern sea lions at the Cape listening to them bark and roar respectively. Later we saw new pups at a rookery that has begun to re-establish itself. When the wind was just right we got a good dose of eau de sea lion!
We began our day immersed in Haida culture in the very remote old village of SGang Gwaay. Walking among the stand