My Watermark is Johnstone Strait, British Columbia.

We went on a school trip to Telegraph Cove in high school to see if we could see any whales. We ended up seeing an entire pod of humpbacks for the entire week! We spent almost every afternoon in the tidal reaches looking for starfish and taking pictures of the humpbacks from the boat. We got to help researchers identify individual whales, and what whales were part of which pod.

I ended up going to UBC to study marine biology because of that week. I grew up in Vancouver, but I'd never even been to the island until that week. It was the first time in high school that I actually felt interested in what we were learning, and getting to help the researchers made me feel important. We actually still track those humpbacks from high school, they were last spotted near Costa Rica we think! The entire Discovery Passage is so incredible, I love going back there now. We almost went to Texas for our field trip, judging by what happened, I'd probably be a cowboy or something now instead of a diver!