Tuesday, May 15th

Our morning tour began by heading west in search for Orcas. We went as far as Secretary Island with no success finding the whales. We then toured into Beecher Bay where we came across 6 bald eagles spread throughout the tree tops. Whirl Bay was our next stop, we came across a beautiful eagles nest high in the trees and were pleased when the eagle returned.
We were still full of hope and decided to see if we could find any transient Orcas feeding in Race Rocks. Although we did not find any Orcas, we were fortunate enough to see several Stellar and California sea lions, Harbour and Elephant seals and an immature bald eagle. As we headed east to Trail Island we came across a small group of Harbour Porpoise that were eager to ride the wake of the boat. Despite the lack to whales, we had a great tour of the local wildlife, scenery and a wonderful group of passengers.

With the sunny skies and an eager group of passengers, we headed east with news from the Spotter that J-Pod had been spotted off the west side of San Juan Island. Once on scene we were greeted by a very active, feeding group. We enjoyed the view as one calf breached 7 times. It seemed the longer we stayed the more active the whales got, the show just kept continuing! As we travelled offshore, we came across Ruffles (J1), a 56 year old male and his mother, Granny (J2) 96 years old. As they past by the boat, they surfaced in unison and we could barely talk over the loud blows. We stopped at The Chain Islands to view hauled out harbour seals, a large bald eagle and many other sea and shore birds. As we headed back to Victoria’s Inner Harbour, we were all in agreement that we had just had a great tour on the waters surrounding Vancouver Island.