August 31, 2006

What an amazing day on the water! This morning, we traveled west in search of our southern residents. Although we did not find any them, we had an absolutely incredible morning highlighted by sightings of two very rare creatures for these parts, a brown pelican and a fin whale (see photos below)! Today’s sighting of a Fin whale was only the third reported sighting in the history of our industry. We had some amazing passes with this leviathon - Fin whales are the second largest whale in the whale, behind only the Blue whale. We concluded the unbelievable trip with yet another stellar visit to Race Rocks to view our pinniped friends.

Today's second trip aboard the Orca Spirit found us just east of Discovery Island traveling to a group of transient orcas that had been sighted. Just past Discovery Island we were surprised by a fluking humpback whale! We watched the whale for several minutes than traveled to the three transient orcas that included the very well marked male T44, and a couple of females, most likely the T41's. These mammal-hunting whales are always exciting to watch and we had an absolutely thrilling pass with the whales to conclude our orca experience. Satisfied we returned to the humpback whale, watching it forage in a tide rip near a couple of Harbour porpoise. A quick tour through the scenic Chain Islets to watch the Harbour seals, one of the transient orcas' favourite food items, was a great way to conclude another exciting trip.

With news of inbound resident orcas out west, we traveled southwest to Race Rocks to start our evening trip. We had a spectacular visit with the California and Stellar sea lions, and then traveled east in search of the residents. We found a couple of foraging Dall's porpoises just off of Point no Point and then were excited to see a large number of blows in the distance. The southern residents had returned! We spent most of our time with a large group of J-Pod whales. We had some amazing passes that included some percussive behaviour (pectoral and tail slaps) and a few distance breaches. With so many whales around, it is likely that we were witnessing the return of all of our residents as some K-Pod whales were identified too, along with a possible L-Pod male (L78). We watched the setting sun as we returned to Victoria, the end of another incredible day of whale watching!