Friday, July 10th

It was another incredible day on the water at Orca Spirit Adventures. With sunny skies and calm seas this morning, we headed out into Juan de Fuca Strait in search of any and all types of marine wildlife common to our area. Of course, the focus of most of our tours is on the ever popular killer whale or orca and this morning did not disappoint. We travelled almost due of Victoria this morning and encountered a large group of whales coming inbound! The whales were spread out and travelling eastward. Captain Brad was able to find some whales off on on their own to the south of the main group, which made for an awesome whale experience. We spent some time with Georgia (K11) and an as of yet unidentified male. As we were watching these whales, we spotted another whale swimming at high-speed in the opposite direction. It turned out to be L88 (Wavewalker) who was rushing to join up his mother Grace (L2) and his older brother Gaia (L78). We had a marvelous viewing experience with these 3 whales who were off on their own a few miles behind the rest of the group. Gaia was sporting some new rake marks, the result of an interaction with another whale or whales. We concluded this amazing adventure with a tour of Race Rocks, where we saw harbour seals and even a couple of mature bald eagles. It was a great way to start the day.

I am running out of superlatives to describe the whale watching this past month, but our afternoon trip proved to be another fantastic experience. We headed east towards San Juan Island to find most of L-pod all grouped and travelling towards San Juan Island in tight formation. It was a truly awesome experience, to have so many whales travelling together. We saw Mega (L41), Skana (L79) and so many others travelling towards the island. As the whales approached the island, we were treated to an incredible double breach! It was an excellent way to leave the orcas after a near private whale watching experience. As we were close to Hein Bank, we made the quick journey over to find a lunge-feeding minke whale! We quickly noticed that there were in fact at least two minke whales foraging - yet another excellent day on the Salish Sea.