September 6, 2006

While we were heading out of the harbor this morning 3 transient Killer whales were spotted heading west for Race Rocks. We followed their path west, but unfortunately they were soon hidden by a fog bank. Keeping our spirits high we traveled along the coast of Vancouver Island hoping to come across the whales as they foraged along the shore. We made a stop at Race Rocks to see the beautiful light house and the many seals and sea lions hauled out to keep warm. The fog broke as we headed into Beacher Bay, allowing us to view the rugged beauty of the West Coast, and warm up a bit in the sunshine.

While at first some of the guests aboard the afternoon Orca Spirit tours were hesitant to travel into the fog bank in the Juan de Fuca Strait, they were rewarded with the acrobatics and joviality of the J-Pod whales. J-Pod was previously seen yesterday on the two voyages of the Orca Spirit as they returned from their pursuit of the spawning salmon up Vancouver’s Frasier River. Now on today’s voyage J-Pod was found past Point no Point returning to the off shore waters of the open Pacific to find another school of spawning salmon. On their trip out to sea J-Pod delighted us with spy hops and repeated breaching. An excellent trip and well worth the venture into the Juan de Fuca fog!

Seeing as the previously sighted J-Pod was heading out towards the open Pacific Ocean we focused our efforts on some transient Killer whales seen off of Otter Point for our evening tours. While the seas were choppy and exciting as we ventured out we soon found a small pod of transient Orcas heading west. This small pod was entirely composed of females and even had a small young whale with them. They swam quite close to the boat and seemed to pose for excellent photos. We then returned via Race Rocks and saw seals and sea lions.