Monday, July 13th

The Orca Spirit with naturalist Captain John and naturalist Corey headed out with an intrepid group of guests headed into Juan De Fuca Strait. Shortly after leaving the harbour, we received a report of orcas near Beacher Bay. We arrived on scene shortly after receiving the report to find members of K and L-pods travelling east towards Race Rocks. We had the good fortunate of observing resting whales - an awesome behaviour as the whales group up. We saw several whales, including K21 (Cappucino), K40 (Raggedy) and the L2 matriliine with L78 (|Gaia), L88 (Wavewalker) and L2 (Grace). Being so close to Race Rocks, we also stopped there for a great wildlife experience as we saw 4 bald eagles and several harbour seals.

Our afternoon trip caught up with the resident orcas as they continued to make their way east across the waterfront in resting formation about 4 miles east of Race Rocks. Still resting, we enjoyed the company of the majestic animals. Near the end of our encounter, and with the tide working more in their favour our guests got to experience the power of the whales as a few of them started porpoising eastward. After our incredible orca encounter, we travelled to Trial Island where several harbour seals and many young pups were hauled out with a majestic bald eagle overlooking the scene! We finished our wildlife encounter with a visit to the Great Chain Island cormorant colony.