Want to see a whale? Try watching from shore

To spot one, you've got to be lucky. Right place, right time. But chances are where there's a will, there's a whale. What do you do if you see one? Will Garashi is part of a group called Shore to Sea Society, a grounded approach to whale watching. And land-based whale watching gets more hits than you might think. This summer I've been fortunate enough to have about 35 encounters from shore. Many of those have been super up close. The island's whale watching companies are world renowned and adhere to federal regulations respecting distance and noise levels and donating to Salish Sea Preservation Initiatives. People come from all over the world to get on board and suit up. But Will says a vessel is a vessel and killer whales are best viewed organically. That's kind of the beauty of land-based whale watching, is that you let the whale decide whether they're going to come up and you're going to be able to see them, minimizing our disturbance to the whales and just letting them do their natural thing. The Shore to Sea Society started as a group chat on Facebook Messenger with members tracking the location of whale watching boats, then heading down to the shore to watch. The group has grown to about 7,000 followers and now it's part of the Southern Gulf Island Whale Sighting Network. It's mostly word of mouth and people head down to the water at a moment's notice to capture moments like this. Moments most of us who live on Vancouver Island have seen with our own eyes. You ever seen a whale? I have definitely seen a whale. All except me it seems. I've lived here almost my whole life and I've seen a fin pop out of the water from a few hundred meters away, but nothing like this group has seen. Do people get emotional? Absolutely, especially first-time encounters. I've seen people crying. It's almost a spiritual experience. At this point I'm half convinced there's a conspiracy in the water against me. How long would it take if I was to sit in that chair before I saw an orca? I would say if you sat in that chair for a week I could almost guarantee it. Patience and magnification helps, but you're not going to get an eyeful there, Sherlock, unless you use binoculars and know what to look for. Just don't get discouraged. Hmm, no whales. Weird. And by all means join the crowd online and on shore. Maybe that's a hobby to take up. Because the show's always about to start, you just never know when.