Friday, September 14th
This morning we headed out south in the early morning sunshine to begin our search for whales. After 30 minutes of scanning the horizon for the sign of a blow or a dorsal fin a call came in to Captain Brad that "something" had been spotted 7 miles south of Trial Island so we sped off to investigate. We soon discovered J pod, one the resident orca pods traveling east. We recognized the wavy fin of the adult male Ruffles (J1) who was swimming in his family group along with Blackberry and about 8 others. After spending a time traveling along with the whales we let them get on their way and headed back to harbour. On the way back we stopped off at Trail Island to view the harbour seals hauled out on the shore.
In the afternoon, with the sun still shining, we headed out towards San Juan Island, where J pod had been traveling to earlier in the day. Off San Juan they had met up with L pod, one of the other resident pods of orcas. Both pods were spread out over a large area feeding on salmon close to the shore of San Juan. Ruffles was the first whale we encountered and was out on his own heading west along the coast of the island. We soon caught up with several other groups also feeding. Just as it was time to leave a small group started breaching, spyhopping and tail slapping close to shore, providing us with spectacular views. We spent time watching the activity of this small group but reluctantly we had to leave the whales to return to Victoria.