Mike and Beth's Adventures

Happy Birthday! If you read our last post, you know that our plans to splash Amy Marie in the Pacific Northwest were delayed for 10 days due to a wheel bearing on the trailer that decided it had worked too hard for too long,  and quit.  Thank goodness we got it fixed and were able to launch Amy Marie in Kingston Washington.  Great little town.  Many people know it as a stop on the Washington State Ferry System.  It is a shortcut to the Kitsap Peninsula for people living on the Seattle side of Puget Sound.  We love it for it's variety of restaurants, the town green near both the marina and the ferry terminal.  Events and markets are hostedall summer long on the green.  We also have extended family who live there. Miss Bones welcomes you for a slice of Kingston Pizza It was important to be in the water and moving so we could join a week long celebration of two family birthdays.  Consequently,  we were unable to linger in Kingston.  My...

'There she blows!" Beth bellowed in the middle of the Strait of Georgia.  This is time timeless call that signals the sighting of a whale.  "Where away" I hollered back.  "To port, windward side", was the response.  We slowed to idle and watched a small group of Humpback Whales swim past us, headed south.  Our encounter occurred during our passage from Silva Bay on Gabriola Island to Vancouver. Since 2004, the Humpback Whale population has grown in BC.  In 2004, only 42 individual whales were identified.  By 2019, the population had grown to 426,  and in 2023 the observed population had grown to nearly 800 ,a dramatic improvement.   The whales were commercially hunted from the 1800's until 1965 in the Pacific Northwest.  During this period of time it is estimated that 28,000 whales were harvested. Humpback spend from spring to fall feeding in the waters of the Pacific Northwest.  In the fall they migrate to their breeding groun...