Wednesday, July 4th

This morning we headed out towards San Juan Island. While on the American side, we spotted some black dorsal fins back towards Vancouver Island. We began approaching that direction but nothing was appearing. After about 10 minutes two groups of whales surfaced and we soon realized why the long dive, they were transients, a subspecies different than our residents who are known to dive for longer periods of time. We observed 2 large males as well as a number of females and possibly juvenile males up to Darcy Island.

We decided to head north and see the transients again for the afternoon trip instead of visiting the L11s that were spotted off of San Juan Island and boy we were happy we did! We found the transients up by Meresby Island where we observed the group hunting. One large male eventually came up with a Harbour Seal, it was an incredible experience to see these transients in action (see photos).

For our evening trip we took a nice calm trip out to San Juan Island by Lime Kilne Lighthouse where the L11s were observed. We saw Mega and some females as they went back and forth along the shoreline apparently hunting on some salmon. We had some nice observations and on our way back to Victoria we managed to stop by the Chain Islands and see a Bald Eagle being mobbed by some gulls.