Sunday, May 18

The Orca Spirit headed out this sunny Sunday morning in search of our resident fish-eating killer whales. The wind made for a bit of a ‘roller-coaster’ ride (as described by one of our 10 year-old passengers that thoroughly enjoyed it), as we headed east across into the Haro Strait and south along San Juan Island.
With calm rolling waves we were able to see well off into the distance, but unfortunately no orcas down this way. So we turned around and headed north and were fortunate enough to see half a dozen harbour porpoises along the way, travelling along the west side of San Juan. We then headed up around Darcy Island (home to a leper colony back in early to mid 1900’s) and south down to Chatham Island (a First Nations Reserve) where we saw a stunning bald eagle perched up on a rock. We then looped around to the Chain Islands where there was a smorgasbord of harbour seals (aka “rock sausages”) all hauled out along the rock mounds, sunning in the great weather Victoria has had this weekend.
Although no whales, it was an adventurous morning out on the water.

The afternoon trip headed out on the Orca Spirit with an almost full boat, determined to find whales. We had a report of J-pod, but they were too far north (up towards Vancouver) for us to get to them, so the decision was made by Captain Brad to still head north up around the Gulf Islands in the hope we could find passengers some cool critters. And we did just that! As we were heading across the Haro Strait towards the northern end of San Juan Island, Sheenah, one of our marine naturalists was on the top deck entertaining passengers when out of the corner of her eye she noticed two black dorsal fins surface about 150m off the stern. “Whales” she cried, as Captain Brad slowed down and turned around. I was on the bottom deck and through the window saw these magnificent creature surface again. Woohoo! We had found whales! Good on ya Sheenah! We were able to identify the big male as T20 by the notch at the top of his almost 6ft tall dorsal fin, and the fact that his dorsal fin hangs slightly to the left at the top. He was travelling with an unidentified female (believed to be T21 as they do often travel together). Being transient orcas their diving and surfacing behaviour is very unpredictable and so passengers were treated to a couple of really good passes and some great photo opportunities to get that big male dorsal fin added to their photo album. It’s always really exciting to be able to be the first to find whales, and to show passengers these spectacular creatures, but also educate them about the threats facing them and what is being done to help conserve their populations. We left these two lone transient orcas to be and headed to Mandarte Island, a bird sanctuary, where passengers saw an abundance of cormorants, gulls and pigeon guillemots on and around the island. It was then time to make the trip back to Victoria and upon arrival at the dock, we had a boat load of very satisfied passengers. I love being able to show people killer whales for the first time. It makes my day!

Below is a pic of T20, and the Orca Spirit passengers admiring his presence.