Blackberry...

No, not the smart phone that was formerly made by RIM Ltd.  I'm talking about the Orca, J-27.

I haven't seen a lot of Blackberry this season.  The past three years, Blackberry has had some close encounter of the Orca kind with our boat.  I don't know if he likes that big ol' Cat diesel, or if it is the fact that I painted the bottom of the boat black and white (that is a joke)?

Today, we had some nice Orca viewing, with the stars being Blackberry and "the Cookie Clan": Oreo, Cookie, and DoubleStuff.  At one point, while the engine was off and we were viewing off the stern of the boat, Blackberry made a deep dive, changed direction, then swam right under our boat!  On the way, he turned on his side, so he could look up at us!  We could clearly see him under the water.. very impressive, the size of that big boy!

The only shot I had time for...

We had Blackberry, his sister, and the Cookie Clan to ourselves for a while, then other whale watch boats (mostly from Victoria) came rolling in.  There were whales up by Vancouver, whales in Rosario Strait, and these guys that we were watching in Haro Strait - it split up the fleet, so it never felt crowded.

A very nice day on the water.

Coming in, we have to do a "pirouette", essentially a 270º rotation, to bring the boat to the dock.  As I made my shift from reverse to neutral to forward to rotate into the dock, I felt the shift lever go slack... that's not a good thing (understatement).  I hollered to crew on our other boat to "hold us off and give us a hand on our dock to catch lines."  They were there in a heartbeat, and it was a very uneventful return.  We thanked guests and helped them off the boat.  Then, went to work to see what was wrong... the shift linkage has a locking lever that holds the cables in place; it decided to cut loose.  We got it put back together, and will put some safety wire on it before the boat goes out again.  The safety wire isn't a required item... well, it now is, for me.

All that took some time, so I was able to ride home with my Honey (I'm usually home before her when I only have one trip).

Tomorrow, I'm on the Roche Harbor boat, doing some sort of trip where we are being photographed from a helicopter... I'm sure I'll get the details before we go out.  Never a dull moment.