Monday, July 28th
Residents and the almighty T14
‘Twas a three trip day for this Aussie naturalist, along with newcomer naturalist Kaylin and Captains John and Rick. Little did we know that today we would see both the fish-eating orca and the mammal-eating orca within these waters of the Salish Sea.
The morning trip headed out with a report of our resident pods heading west out the Strait of Juan De Fuca, so with no time to waste we left the dock and arrived on scene just south of Otter Pt. The resident orcas were very spread out but all heading in a westerly direction so it appears as though they may be gone for a couple of days, which is the norm for these animals this time of year. We managed to spot a couple of individuals that appeared to be playing together. One was on it’s back with pectoral fins up in the air and slapping it’s tail. We shut our engines off to watch these animals and I dropped the hydrophone in the water to pick up any vocalizations that they were making, and they sure were making some! Plenty of calls and clicks as we watched the female K40 (aka Raggedy, 45 yrs old) and her younger brother K21 (aka Cappuccino, 22 yrs old) play around and then stop in the water and just watch us, before heading on their course west with the rest of the pod. Passengers were utterly amazed and extremely lucky to actually be watched themselves by the orca. We also got to witness a couple of breaches off in the distances as well as tail slaps and some very clear vocalizations through the hydrophone. What a fantastic trip watching these fish-eating orcas.
This afternoon we headed out with a report of a mammal-eating orca just east of Victoria at Chatham Island, so with a full Pacific Explorer and a bunch of keen passengers we took to the glass-like waters off the coast of Victoria and arriving on scene we saw that it was the infamous lone transient orca ‘Pender’ (T14, 44yrs old). Welcome back mate! It has been exactly one month since we have seen Pender in these waters. We watched as this huge male (most likely the biggest male orca we have in these waters) played in amongst the bull kelp on the north-eastern side of Chatham Island. He was draping the kelp fronds over his huge 6ft dorsal fin and slapping his tail amongst the kelp. What a truly amazing sight to see! We watched Pender as he cruised the shoreline around the island and began to head north. So we left this ‘Ultimate Bachelor’ to be and went to check out the Chain Islands where we were lucky enough to see a harbour seal mother that appeared to be teaching it’s pup to forage. I hope it’s a quick learner because in 4-6 weeks it’s on its own! On Main Chain island we saw an abundance of marine birds such as gulls and their chicks, cormorants, and pigeon guillemots. It really is the productive time of year in these waters! What a diversity filled trip, all just half an hour from Victoria!
The evening trip headed out in the search for Pender again, and after heading east then north into Sidney Channel and searching we finally spotted this iconic male (well he’s not hard to miss!). Pender was making quite a few deep dives (around 5-7min) but when he did surface he gave passengers plenty of great photo opportunities, and you could clearly see the distinct markings on the leading edge of his dorsal where he was tagged with a radio transmitter back in 1976. Waters were flat calm as this harbour seal eating orca slowly made his way north towards Sidney. Sadly it was soon time for us to leave, so we headed back to Victoria and checked out some of Pender’s favourite item on the menu, the harbour seal (aka ‘rock sausages’ and ‘orcaderves’). Another great trip out with Orca Spirit and passengers extremely happy that they had been lucky enough to observe ‘The Big Man on Campus’ T14. See you in a month or so Pender! Always a pleasure mate. I’ll have some coldies on ice ready for when you return ;-)
