Interested in a Mothership Kayaking Adventure?

The Snow Goose is fully equipped with enough kayaks for your Mothership Kayaking Adventure. Whether you want to paddle the waters of the Southern San Juan Islands, or the Northern shores of Southeast Alaska - The Snow Goose is your vessel for an excellent kayaking experience. All of our vessels have kayaks onboard, but this vessel has a wide range of inventory and styles. Contact our office for details 1.888.877.1770 - We look forward to hosting your group!

Amazing Sightings in Haida Gwaii!

The 4 crew and 12 guests onboard the Island Roamer right now in the Queen Charlotte Islands had a great wildlife show yesterday. They spotted two Sperm whales, which were both approximately 40 feet long. The whales were located roughly about 10 miles off the Islands in the open Pacific waters. What an experience! To top it off, they also saw 45 black-footed Albatross the same day. We are looking forward to seeing the pictures and the videos when they get back from their trip.

Bluewater Welcomes Erin Hrushowy

Our staff would like to introduce you to Erin Hrushowy - the newest member of the Bluewater office team. Erin's educational experience is in Business & Tourism Marketing - and has a variety of work experience in Logistics and Planning. Erin can be reached at info@bluewateradventures.ca and looks forward to helping you all plan your adventures this season.

Bluewater in British Columbia and Westworld Magazines - Available Now!

Check out an article "Sail through Haida Gwaii" - by Frances Backhouse who joined us in May 2008 in the Queen Charlotte Islands. Special Anniversary issue, Summer 2009


White Sight - Spirit Bear Spotting in BC - By Bill and Joan Prunkl
Summer 2009 issue

visit our media page for full articles and other recent news

Illegal Grizzly Bear Poaching Discovered in Great Bear Rainforest Park

Picture by Randy Burke, Bluewater Adventures

Bella Bella (June 12, 2009) -- A grizzly bear trophy hunter was found illegally baiting bears Thursday night in the Giltoyees River Conservancy Area on the B.C. north coast. Captain Eric Boyum, owner of the bear viewing company BC-based Ocean Adventures, discovered the incident while guiding a group of international clients in the remote watershed twenty-five kilometers east of the First Nations village of Hartley Bay. "We were getting settled in for the evening to photograph and watch for bears as they feed on sedges at the waters edge," stated Mr. Boyum reached by satellite phone on the Douglas Channel "when we discovered the individual, along with a large sack of bait being used to lure the bears into shooting range." "We have reported the full details of this sickening discovery to the local RCMP in Kitimat." Under section 33.1 of the BC Wildlife Act, it is illegal to use bait when hunting bears. "We have been receiving reports all season from frustrated bear viewing businesses, First Nations and members of the public that are fed up with finding trophy hunters in areas where they believed wildlife were protected." stated Ian McAllister of the conservation group Pacific Wild. "However, this blatant illegal poaching - in a park - is one of the more disturbing." The B.C. spring bear trophy hunt season closes on June 15th and it is estimated that between 100 and 150 BC grizzly bears have already been killed for sport in 2009. The BC liberals recently declared 30% of the central and north coast protected but continues to allow trophy hunting of bears in protected areas.

Over 80% of the protected areas and parks in British Columbia allow trophy hunting to occur within park boundaries. A coalition of Coastal First Nations, conservation and animal welfare groups have been working to ban the sport hunt of bears on the BC coast and Haida Gwaii. A 2009 Ipsos-Reid poll shows more than 79 percent of British Columbians want to see protection for bears in the Great Bear Rainforest.

For more information contact: Ian McAllister, Pacific Wild

outbind://85-0000000045F121361680344AADFC01B3B64AAA8D44352600/ian@pacificwild.org For b-roll video and interviews contact PacificWild. http://www.pacificwild.org/

Getting to Know Humpbacks

By Bruce Whittington, Bluewater Naturalist

Taxis, buses, ferries, a plane ride or two — it’s not easy to get to Haida Gwaii for a trip with Bluewater Adventures. But the effort seems to vanish once we are underway. Each time I return, I am reminded of why I love this place: it’s the abundance of life here.

Within the national park reserve, vast forests stand unchanged by industry. The Haida people continue in their ancient relationship to this land. In May, thousands of tiny Ancient Murrelet chicks make their midnight dashes to the sea, in search of their parents whom they know only by the sound of their voices.

Perhaps the most visible of Haida Gwaii’s residents are its Humpback Whales. Until the 1940s, these gentle leviathans were hauled ashore at Rose Harbour, and rendered into oil and meal. The population was reduced to a fraction of its historical size. Today, though, the Humpbacks have returned in a way that is at once encouraging and exhilarating.

They come from Hawaii, where they spend the winters mating, and giving birth. But they do not feed there. In the spring, they migrate to the North Pacific, with its teeming marine food chain. The 40-tonne whales feed largely on krill, tiny animals that may be less than two centimeters in length.

On a typical Bluewater cruise, we see whales daily. Some are identified only by their distant blows, while others feed intently within easy photo range of the boat. It’s not unusual to see 20 or more whales in a given area.

How many whales are there? Are we seeing the same whales over and over? I’ve been photographing the whales in the years I’ve been a naturalist for Bluewater, and it’s fascinating to see how different these animals can be.

Researchers are identifying Humpback Whales by the pattern on the underside and trailing edge of their broad tail flukes. They range from black through mostly white, with an amazing variety of patterns in between.

Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans hosts a web site with photos of over 1,000 Humpbacks known to occur in British Columbia waters. They are grouped according to the amount of white in their flukes:
http://www-sci.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sa/cetacean/humpbackwhale/default_e.htm

Using this site, I’ve identified at least eight whales in my photos. It’s exciting to know that “my” whales have been seen before. But more exciting was a whale photographed in 2008 that appeared again in my photos from 2009! The whale’s number is BCZ0273, and here are the photos. You can see that the pattern on the tail is the same a year later. (The yellow markings are algae growth, and they do change over time.)

It shouldn’t surprise me to see the same whales returning, but it is a thrill just the same. It gives me hope that perhaps this diverse and wild landscape will continue sustain the Humpback Whales and all the other species that call it home.

Bruce Whittington, Naturalist

CORAL DANGER

Environmental group launches expedition to assess danger to coral from trawler gear By Judith Lavoie, Victoria Times Colonist May 31, 2009


Picture: Stringer, AFP/Getty Images

VICTORIA — Delicate forests of deep-sea corals under Hecate Strait and the Queen Charlotte Basin are virtually unprotected from destructive fishing methods such as bottom-trawling for groundfish, says the executive director of a marine environmental group.

Each year in British Columbia waters, about 2,000 kilograms of coral is hauled to the surface in trawl nets, according to Department of Fisheries and Oceans statistics. "That is amazing when you think the coral is incredibly light and fragile — it's not huge boulders," said Jennifer Lash of Living Oceans Society.

Lash, with a team of international scientists, will embark on an expedition in June that she hopes will provide enough information to convince the government to step in and protect the coral forests. Until now, there has been little research into varieties and locations of the tree-like creatures, Lash said. In 2004, after research by Living Oceans, activists demanded the deep-sea habitat be protected from bottom trawling and DFO responded with a scientific review that concluded the habitat should be protected.

Boosting calls for protection was a 2004 statement signed by 1,100 international marine scientists calling on governments and the United Nations to stop the destruction of deep-sea corals. "Bottom trawling is like fishing with bulldozers," U.S coral expert Elliott Norse said at the time. But action from DFO has been slow, largely because of lack of information about deep-sea corals, Lash said. For the full article, click here

Bluewater Adventures is active in educating our guests about this issue, as we do daily intertidal explorations - we are visiting some of the richest intertidal zones in the world. If these disappear, we will be educating our guests on what once existed in these coastal waters.