Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like you are in a bubble? Where you think about nothing but where you are and how beautiful it is – today was one of those days.

We had a 2.5 hour drive from Parksville to Campbell River, which was truly worth the drive, where we boarded a comfortable closed in boat, with multiple viewing decks to get that perfect picture.

If anyone has travelled in the Fjords of New Zealand, it was a bit like that with the smooth dark green waters – perfect calm, and mountains green either side of Discovery Passage and the mystique clouds sometimes lower than the peaks of the mountains.    I spent the two hour travelling time outside on the front deck, with only the sea wind on my face.   It was easy to find peace and a mesmerising feel for not thinking about anything but the natural surroundings.

We slow down to see the 30 odd Stella Sea Lions all swimming together in a lazy fashion at North Bluff in Seymour Narrows.

Just a little way further we see a spray in the distance, very close to shoreline in Browns Bay – apparently it is deep by the banks and it's not uncommon to see whales in sheltered waters, the humpback - nicknamed KC - called Kelp Creature, because he was found in the kelp when first viewed in these waters.

After more travel around and past islands we enter Bute Inlet to stop at the Homalco First Nations Land of the Grizzly Bear.

Within 20 minutes we climbed on a small bus and we are at our first Grizzly Platform, excited - we watched Mum and two young cubs feeding on salmon, then another grizzly was sighted swimming down the small rapid river, when he got out – it was quite funny, we saw him s*** in the woods – literally! He then made his way down to where Mum and cubs were, Mum decided to take her cubs away from the feeding grounds, and then another big fellow arrived.   Five bears in less than hour, and fairly close. We were on the other side of the river, the encounter felt very close.  

We moved onto Platform 5, and what a wonderful time we had there, still in that bubble. We all were so quiet and still you could hear a pin drop, as we watched another Mum and her older cub, make their way down the river, feeding on salmon, playing with the fish flipping about, birds everywhere, it was like watching one of those David Attenborough films but we were in the film!     Baby bear decided he'd sit right in front of us, he stuck his nose in the air, I’m sure he could see us all and to just sit and watch each other was incredible. To make the tour even better, there was no rush to leave this magic place, we spent ages just watching, I'd say at least one hour.

On our return back to the boat, we stopped to see another Mum and two cubs on the Algard River - only 40 metres away, again no rush but because it was not at a platform it was just on the bank of the river watching we didn’t stay as long for safety reasons.

In total we saw six full grown bears, one larger cub, and four new born cubs. Eleven bears in three hours. Nothing can really describe the viewing; it was just amazing to see nature at its best.  

As we boarded the boat to return to Campbell River, we could view Harbour Seals sunning themselves on the floating wood piles by the wharf.

A warm coffee and cookies on our return, again I found myself on deck, where I could only hear the bow waves. The sun slowly disappeared as we made our way back.

We did stop for another two humpbacks in the Okisollo Channel and then back in the Discovery passage we were joined by over 500 extremely active pacific white-sided dolphins that rode our bow and what a ride they had!    I could not take photos because the ocean was like dolphin soup, they were popping up everywhere and they were fast – a wonderful finale!

A big bear hug from us, we wish you all could have been here with us today, it was just one of those days where you can’t explain the encounter we had in words.