Monday, September 8

Playful T’s just off BC’s Capital

The Resident’s (fish-eating orcas) returned yesterday afternoon after being away for about 5 days, and so we figured they would be somewhere around this morning. We had gotten a report of orcas off the west side of San Juan Island, so heading east across the Haro Strait just after 9:30am I caught a glimpse of blows off in the distance, and sure enough, we had orcas! It was an absolutely magical morning on the water; the sun was shining, water was like glass, we were the only boat out there, and we had our resident favourites J-pod foraging. As we got closer, a breach, and again! It was as if this orca was waiting for us to arrive to show off. Now I know this is not the case but I can speculate can’t I? The members of the pod seemed to join up in front of False Bay, and it really is awesome to see 15+ whales travelling and socialising close together. We left J’s heading north up the west side in the search for more things marine mammal, and sure enough, just south of Clover Pt off Victoria we came across 7 mammal-eating orcas. Residents and Transients (T’s) all in one trip! Phenomenal! I couldn’t believe how lucky we were! We identified the T’s as T41, and her two offspring T41B and son T44 that has a very distinct nick out of his almost 6ft tall dorsal fin. The T100’s were in with them as well, travelling south then all of a sudden, spyhop by T44! Awesome! Guess he wanted to check us out! Passengers aboard the Orca Spirit were unbelievably lucky to be able to see both types of orca this morning, and being the first boat on scene to both really made it a very special whale watching adventure. Being a naturalist I think I sometimes get more excited than the passengers. What can I say, it’s a great place to come whale watching!

The afternoon trip headed out again to sunshine and flat calm seas, and we didn’t have to go far from Victoria until we came across an extremely social, extremely active bunch of T’s. Just before we left the dock there was a report of more T’s (T30’s and T46’s) joining up with the group we saw this morning and approaching on scene we had 10+ orcas that appeared to be having a bit of a party. Spyhops, tailslaps, reverse tailslaps, cartwheels, breaches, porpoising, lots of vocalising… you name it they did it! I’ve never seen T’s so active like this, and socialising like crazy, it was truly spectacular! (I’m really running out of words to describe watching these amazing animals). It got me thinking, why had I not witnessed transients being so social before? I thought that maybe because they normally do travel solely in their small family groups (1-5 individuals) to maximize foraging efficiency, and they are hunting about 90% of the time, that because food for them is so plentiful this time of year in the Salish Sea (lots of seals, sealions and porpoises) that they could actually take time of from hunting and feeding to socialise and enjoy one another’s company. It certainly seemed like an orca party that’s for sure! We also headed south to Race Rocks to witness the pinniped fiesta that is going on there at the moment. It’s crazy how many sea lions are hauled out there this time of year. I’m loving it! Passengers are loving it too of course! On our way back to Vic we checked out the orca party that was still going on. Could be a late one for these dolphins tonight! It was just another phenomenal trip with Orca Spirit and passengers stepped onto the dock grinning from ear to ear. Check out some action pics below from today’s trip. A passenger said she will email me some of her shots so when they are received we will post for all to see. See also Mark White photos below, they are really amazing!
I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings…