In the afternoon on our second day of the road trip  we took a 3 hour whale watching cruise which left from the marina at the Rosario Resort.  Originally we had been scheduled to go in the morning but due to a mix up the company put us on the afternoon tour.  We were happy to change our plans  since it was cloudy in the morning.  It turned out to be a good thing since  by early afternoon  the sun came out and most of the clouds and fog disappeared.  Not only that but we were able to see quite a bit of wildlife including whales and the morning group were not fortunate enough to see the whales!

Here is a view  of the Rosario Resort (the original mansion) as we left the harbour.

Here you can see Wendy and Ralph enjoying themselves on the boat.  The woman on the right was the guide- she was excellent.  It turned out that she was a high school teacher and this job was a enjoyable summer job  for her.    It wasn't a particularly large boat which was nice- it was also a very fast boat so they gave us blankets.  I also was wearing my sweatshirt, jacket and windbreaker and needed all of them.  I couldn't figure out how the guide could keep warm with her small amount of clothing.  Fortunately once we got out to sea the boat slowed down and stopped at times so we could see all of the nature and enjoy the warmth of the sun.

A larger view of the resort as we got further from the coast.  

This shot was taken of the waves behind the boat and the islands in the background.  We were told that the geography in this area (fjords) was very similar to Finland. 

We passed by this Island which was full of birds.   I didn't have a telephoto lens so this photo is heavily cropped as we did not get as close to the Island as I would have liked.

I believe this was the Admiralty Head Lighthouse on Whidbey Island.

We did actually see some  Minke Whales on the trip.  I didn't get a great picture of the whole whale- I just wasn't fast enough.  The Minke Whale is the second smallest baleen whale.  The maximum length for a full grown male is approximately 23 feet and he would weigh a maximum of 14 tons.  This whale typically live for 30-50 years- too bad dogs don't live this long!

We came across an Island where these seals were sunbathing.  

As we got back on shore I walked around the gardens and ponds of the resort.  I liked the color of these flowers.  I intentionally used a small aperture and did some processing  to get more of a blur effect.

This shot was taken walking back from the marina to our room.

There was a nice lily pond on the property.

I met up with our friend the deer again.  Actually there were two of them wandering around.  John had bought an apple to feed the deer.

We ended up eating dinner at the Deer Harbour Inn which had been recommended to us (by one of the owners but it was delicious).   After dinner we went to Deer Harbour  to take some photos.  It was already getting dark by the time we arrived.

There were a lot of boats in this marina.

On the other side of the marina there were a lot of homes built on the hills.

I was starting to get some nice colours but unfortunately no clouds.

One of the last shots of the night.

Just for fun I changed the white balance of the above picture to see what the result would look like.  I kind of like this effect.  I got this idea from a friend who sent me a somewhat similar photo in blue.