February 25th - Sea lion Experience!

Sea Lion tours are a great way to get out on the water for a few hours and see some beautiful wildlife as well as gorgeous scenery of the gulf islands.
On this particular Sea Lion adventure we left the harbour and made our way to Entrance Island. Many people pass Entrance Island as they come and go from Vancouver Island on the Ferries. Entrance Island is home to one of Canada’s last manned lighthouses. There are people who live here year round and maintain the lighthouse and weather station not the island. This lighthouse helps guide people back to Nanaimo, and provides us with important weather information before and during our tours.

In previous years Entrance Island hosted a large group of Stellar Sea lions on it’s shores, however this year we haven’t seen too many hanging out there. This may be due to a new face on the island, a very loud golden lab. Last fall, when the sea lions returned from their breeding grounds, we watched the dog and a large gathering of female Stellar Sea Lions playing chicken on the rocks. The dog would chance them into the water and wait on the shores while the Sea Lions watched from the water for their chance to get back on land.
It seems that the dog may be enough of a deterrent that the Sea Lions have decided to hang out somewhere else this year.
We did manage to find some Harbour seals near by, tucked away on a rock closer to Gabriola Island. This rock completely disappears at high tide, but during low tide it’s an excellent haul out for our tiny rock Sausages.
After watching the Harbour seals here for a bit we made our way to Snake Island. Another popular seal haul out.
Snake Island has 2 sunken ships near it as artificial reefs. These ships were cleaned and prepped before a planned sink next to the island to create an artificial reef for wildlife. The first boat, the HMCS Saskatchewan was sunk in 1997 and was quickly populated by all kinds of sea life, most notably the white anemone’s that coat the entire ship, giving it a ghostly white appearance. There are many species of fish that call these reefs home and that attracts our seals and sea lions who often fish in the area.
We did manage to find more seals lounging at Snake Island but no sea lions today.

After seeing our Seals we headed to a spot where we know Sea Lions hang out, Harmac! The Harmac pulp mill sits south of Nanaimo and north of Dodd’s Narrows. They always have several log booms rafted outside the factory where the California Sea lions spend their winter.
These Sea lions return in the late summer from their breeding grounds in California and they spend the winter lounging on the logs and fishing for lunch in Dodd’s Narrows. These Sea Lions are a lively bunch, you can often hear them barking at each other long before you can see them.

Below are the photos taken during the Sea Lion excursion by naturalist Rebecca Stirling.

Entrance Island with the Coastal Mountain range in the background.

Yoga with our seals!

Time for a dive!

The beautiful bluffs on Gabriola Island.