A Whale of a Time in the PNW

"I just finished a 10-day trip around the north end of Vancouver Island on Evening Star, a C&C 43 owned by my friends Dave and Mary Utley from Bainbridge Island, Washington," writes Mike Currie, who sails his "highly modified" Newport 30 Voyager out of Poulsbo, WA. "I’d never been around this part of the island before and I really enjoyed the trip. We saw lots of fog, some rain, not much wind and lots of wildlife.

"The photo above is from one of those special, lucky moments that ended up being one of the highlights of the trip. We were motoring around north side of the Brooks Peninsula when I saw a log in the water directly ahead of us. I veered to port to miss it but when we were about 80 feet away, the log disappeared. Suddenly a large humpback came out of the water directly in front of us! A few moments later a smaller whale breached within 40 feet of us. It jumped three more times behind us, then waved goodbye with a flipper.

"The weather in the Pacfic Northwest may not be always conducive to shirt-sleeve sailing but the wildlife is sure something else."