January 16th - Discovery Island and Orcas (#8)

Dan, Paulo and I went for a "regular" morning paddle around the islands. Conditions were nice, not much current and not too much wind. I had misplaced my sunglasses so I had to squint quite a bit against the low winter sun! The tide was high and I had not been into the inlet in east Chatham Island for some time, so we made a short detour to check on the prickly pear cactus on the islet. They seem to be doing well (and are a tad smaller than the Galapagos ones!). There was a nice group of male Steller sea lions at Seabird Point as well as a few seals along the way. We saw Cheryl in her boat and went over to chat with her for a bit about the wolf. She has had some good sightings recently. On our way back across Baynes Channel we were treated to a nice display by a small pod of orcas. You can see the "blip" in my track where we stopped to watch them. They looked like they were feeding and at one point one of them did a spyhop!

click to enlarge

16 km, YTD 88 km