Wednesday, September 10th

Good ‘ol T’s…

Well folks, it was another pearla of a day on the waters just south of Victoria. I’m really liking this September weather - Let’s hope it stays this way.

Captain Rick and I (naturalist Tim) headed out this morning knowing the T’s had to be around somewhere. They have been around the last week or so due to plenty of food being around for them, so it was just a matter of finding them. We headed south east out of the harbour and looped around into the Strait of Juan De Fuca, south of Race Rocks west into Beecher Bay and out, and nothing. Then on the radio we hear “Contact, contact” and sure enough the T’s had been picked up just south of William Head, very close to the shoreline. So we headed there and on the way checked out Race Rocks where as I’ve said before, is just teeming with pinniped life this time of year. We arrived just north of William Head to where the T41’s and T109’s were (5 in total), and they were cruising right along the shoreline. We positioned ourselves to watch these awesome mammals go by and after watching them from a distance we watched them go on their deep dive (3-5 minutes). After sitting their silently waiting for them to surface, next we knew they had changed direction and popped up near the Orca Spirit! Passengers got a phenomenal view as all 5 orcas surfaced in sync, their blows echoing for all to hear. Seas were flat calm and as we watched them hug the shoreline, we saw the big male T44 lunge at something, perhaps a harbour seal. They all seemed to mill in one spot and we figured they had found something to eat. As we left the scene we were extremely lucky to witness two breaches and spyhop.
They bid us a fond farewell as we headed back to Vic, well, I like to think so anyway.

The fantastic weather continued for this afternoon and the T’s hadn’t moved much from where we left them this morning. We arrived on scene to an indecisive bunch of mammal-eating orcas. They were consistently changing direction and then decided to go into resting mode (an orca’s “sleep”). When an orca is resting it slows its movement’s right down, the group bunches up very close together and they actually switch off one hemisphere of their brain at a time. Amazing I know! Watching these animals surfacing ever so slowly and in sync really is a sight to behold. Passengers managed to get a fantastic look at these orcas and some great photos as they passed off our stern. We then headed to Race Rocks to see the sea lion haul out and they were certainly being aggressive towards each other. Males will be males! Nature at its finest! After seeing (and smelling) these large pinnipeds we headed back to check out the T’s one last time before heading home. They were still resting and we got magnificent views of them with the Olympic Peninsula as a backdrop. With magical weather this afternoon it topped off what really was just a great whale watching adventure. Check out a couple of pics below from today’s trips.


Hello,
Terry and I enjoyed our trip this morning (September 10th 9am tour), and Tim asked us to send a few images, so here they are.
Regards, Shaun

Thank you Shaun - these photos are great!