Tuesday, September 11

Today's tours were spent viewing superpod off the southern end of Vancouver Island! Super pod is when all three of our southern resident pods of Orcas come together for socializing and mating. We enjoyed things like tail slapping, spyhoping (the whale goes vertical in the water column and bring their head out) and breaching (the whale jumps clear of the water). We also had a chance on the morning tour to see a large humpback whale feeding in the waters south of Victoria and the afternoon tour we went through Race Rocks where we saw many Harbour seals, Stellar and California sea lions. With all our amazing animal sightings and a great sunny and calm day we could not ask for more.

Monday, September 10

We had received word that there were whales out West from Victoria, so we travelled along the Coastline, past Sooke and on to Otter Point. In this area we came across the resident Orcas, L pod. They were spread out and showing behaviours consistent with feeding, but within 10 minutes of arriving humpbacks were spotted directly ahead and we moved round for a look. We saw 3 humpbacks surfacing a few times together, and then when they went down on their deeper dive, each one threw up its tail in turn, and under they went. We could see humpbacks in one direction and Orcas in the other! We moved back to be with the Orcas, and we saw the newest baby for the residents, L110 with her mother Moonlight. We even saw some baby breaches, and plenty of tail slapping. Everyone had a great trip, with one woman summing it up as "Groovy"!!