Saturday, May 16th

What began as a search for 3 transient orca this morning turned into a veritable superpod of transient orca! Our 9 am trip ventured east towards Haro Strait where 3 orcas had been reported earlier in the morning. We made our way past Trial Island and the Chain Islets and were entering Haro Strait when we received reports of a couple of orcas from our zodiac captain Christian, who had spotted orcas south of Trial Island. north. He soon realized that we had more than just the two and when we got on scene we realized eventually that we were dealing with 20+ transient orcas. Our passengers were awestruck by the sheer size of two mature males, T20 and T102, both common visitors to our waters and were thrilled by an amazing pass from about 7 transient females and juveniles off the stern of our vessel. It was a truly memorable encounter this morning. Our trip was concluded with a spectacular visit to Race Rocks, where we saw four pinniped species: California and steller sea lions, as well as northern elephant seals and harbour seals. It was an excellent way to start the day and there was more to come.

For the afternoon trip we had to travel several miles southwest of Race Rocks where we encountered several orcas south of Sooke. Although the huge transient group had dispersed from the morning tour, we had an excellent encounter with about 8 transient orcas, including T102 and most likely the T101's. We watched some stunning behaviour this afternoon as spyhops and tailslaps seemed to be the order of the afternoon.. I have never seen so much spyhopping form transient orcas. We witnessed at least 15 spyhops! We were able to once again cap our trip with another great tour of Race Rocks and its plethora of pinnipeds. We also witnessed a bald eagle being mobbed by a lone black oystercatcher!

Finally, we had an excellent evening trip aboard the Pacific Explorer, which was making its first trip of the season. This evening we encountered J-pod off of Pile Point on San Juan Island. We had an awesome evening with a spyhopping young orca. We had a wonderful viewing experience with a small group of orcas and it was a magnificent way to conclude an amazing day!