Wednesday, October 10

Within 20 minutes of the trip beginning we encountered humpbacks south of Victoria. First we spotted on humpback surfacing and throwing up its tail flukes before a longer dive, and as we watched for it to resurface we spotted a pair of humpbacks rising together, breathing, and diving again towards the front of the boat. We stayed to watch the humpbacks for a while, there were 5 individual whales around the boat, before heading out into the middle of the Strait for a quick search of the area. We turned back towards the shore, where we spotted some harbour seals hauled out, and a bald eagle circling above the area where the nest was located. There was also a large group of turkey vultures riding on the thermals, and we headed out to Race Rocks to see the seals and sea lions hauled out there.

In the afternoon we again headed towards the humpbacks, and saw 2 pairs feeding in the area close to where we had viewed them in the morning. Again plenty of opportunities to photograph the tail flukes, as one after the other they went on deeper dives. Another search out into the Strait, just to check to see whether we had any transients turn up in the area, before again travelling along the shore line and visiting Race Rocks towards the end of the trip.