北美普及特海灣--西雅圖--溫哥華島
From Seattle to Vancouver Island — A Journey after Study
After accompanying my students to a study program at Evergreen State College（常青州立學院）, we finally completed our days of classes, cultural exchange, and campus life. The students had not only practised their English but had also experienced a different rhythm of learning and living in the American Pacific Northwest.
When the program ended, we still had about ten days left for travel. Leaving behind the quiet, green campus, we set out from Seattle（西雅圖） and continued northward toward Canada. It was a welcome change: books and classrooms gave way to harbours, forests, distant mountains and the vast blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.
From Seattle, we travelled toward Vancouver Island（溫哥華島）. The voyage itself was already part of the pleasure. The sea stretched endlessly beneath the changing sky, while small islands, wooded shorelines and white sailing boats appeared and disappeared in the distance. Cool ocean winds swept across the deck, carrying the clean, salty scent of the sea.
One of the most anticipated experiences was whale watching（賞鯨）. Everyone watched the water carefully, hoping to see a whale rise beside our boat. At last, several whales appeared far out at sea. We could see their dark backs breaking through the surface and, occasionally, a faint column of mist rising as they breathed.
Unfortunately, they were too far away for us to see them clearly. There was no dramatic close encounter, no enormous tail rising directly before our eyes. From such a distance, the whales looked like small, dark shadows moving quietly across the water.
Yet the experience was still beautiful.
The excitement of searching for them brought everyone together. Whenever someone noticed a movement on the horizon, the students would point toward the sea and call to one another. Even though the whales remained distant, the knowledge that these magnificent creatures were swimming freely in the same waters filled us with wonder.
The ocean itself was unforgettable. Sunlight scattered across the waves like countless pieces of silver, seabirds circled above us, and the coastline slowly changed as our boat approached Vancouver Island. Beyond the water stood dark evergreen forests and mist-covered mountains, giving the landscape a quiet and mysterious beauty.
Perhaps travel does not always give us a perfect view of everything we hope to see. Sometimes the whale remains only a distant shadow; sometimes the finest scenery cannot be captured clearly in a photograph. But the sea breeze, the students’ excited voices and the beauty of that wide northern ocean remain vivid in memory.
After our time at Evergreen State College, these ten days of travel became a fitting conclusion to the study tour—a journey from classrooms to coastlines, from youthful learning to the freedom of the open sea, and from Seattle to the distant shores of Vancouver Island.
We did not see the whales clearly, but we felt the immense beauty of the sea—and sometimes, that is more than enough.
