Monday, July 2
What a truly fantabulous day on the water! This morning, we received word of inbound whales travelling towards Victoria off of Sooke, so our 9 am trips headed out to meet and greet them. We caught up with the whales off of Beechey Head in East Sooke Park, and watched as the whales made their way amongst the sportfishing boats and continued towards Victoria. Although initial reports indicated that these whales were L-pod, on closer inspection we found Ruffles (J1) among the 25 whales in resting formation. There was no mistaking that this was J-pod. After viewing the whales for a while, we heard a report of a humpback whale only a couple of miles away and headed over to give our passengers a look at the largest species of whale commonly encountered in our area. We saw some spectacular fluking behaviour, and watched this animal in awe for several minutes. Our westward journey allowed us to stop at Race Rocks, where we found several harbour seals, a couple of elephant seals and a variety of seabirds. After leaving Race Rocks, we made a quick journey back to J-pod, watching as the resting whales continued to surface in unison, truly an amazing sight.
For our afternoon trip, J-pod was only about 10 minutes out of the harbour, but still in resting mode. We sat in the calm waters and watched as these magnificent animals continued their travels slowly eastward past Victoria and towards San Juan Island. Resting whales are a magnificent sight; when killer whales rest they group together and surface together in unision. This behaviour often leads to excellent photo opportunities and today was no exception. After leaving the orcas, we travelled southwest to meet up with this mornings humpback. It surfaced frequently, showing us its massive flukes several times. It was a wonderful experience. We concluded this amazing trip with a tour of Race Rocks, where in addition to a great visit with many harbour seals, we saw a huge elephant seal lying lazily in the water blowing bubbles!
Our evening trip was a highlight of the season and one of the most spectacular whale viewing experiences this naturalist has ever had. We encountered L-pod travelling across the Victoria waterfront and travelled with them as they made way their towards San Juan Island where they eventually met up with J-pod. We started the trip with a visit from Mega (L41) and his siblings, and the fantastic sightings continued from their. As the whales moved closer to San Juan Island, they became more vocal and incredibly active and several whales started to breach as they crossed past Discovery Island into Haro Strait. I have never seen as many breaches as I did tonight. The vocalizations were wonderful, with lots of calls and echolocation. We had some great looks at what looked like the new L-pod baby. Near the end of the trip, we shut our engines down in a tide rip off San Juan Island to watch the spectacle and noticed Ruffles (J1). The pods had come together! The social behaviour continued as we watched the whales foraging and cavorting with each other. Words really cannot do this trip justice, as we were sad to leave and head for home!




