Lisa and Ethan have been in town for the past week, which has been a lot of fun. Sadly I couldn't take any time off work to hang with them, but we did spend a fair bit of time on the weekends. I'll add a couple of posts with some pics to share.
On the Sunday while they were in town, we booked a whale watching trip so they could (hopefully) see some orcas. Not only did we see them, the boat ride was less than 5 minutes as they were in English Bay, right off the beach near Spanish Banks!
While we were getting suited up in the office of the whale watching boat, it came over the radio that there was a pod of transient orcas in English Bay! This is super-rare (the naturalists' comment was "they are close enough the city will go crazy"), and meant we had less than a 5 minute boat ride out to where they were. We first spotted them in amongst the tankers that are always anchored in the bay, and followed them out past Spanish Banks - a place where we've been in the water frequently, then out past the tip of UBC. It was quite amazing, so I'll just throw up the pics I got.
After following the orcas for a while, the captain cruised up into Howe Sounds, passing by Lighthouse Park in West Van and going up amongst the islands in the sound. It gave us a chance to see a bunch of harbour seals that were having out in what turned into a nice, sunny day.