Saturday, August 2

Great morning. With naturalists Kaylin, Sean, and Captain Brad, along with an excited group of whale-watchers, the Orca Spirit headed out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and over to False Bay of Washington's San Juan Island in the search for orcas. We were greeted instead by a small group of Dall's porpoises, who were all too happy to criss cross the Spirit literally feet from the bow as we slowed down to take a look.
After playing with the porpoises, we decided to head west to Hein Bank to see if we could find some Minke whales feeding on herring. After a little while of searching, we started to make our way back toward Victoria when Brad suddenly spotted J-Pod making their way across the straight. All 25 of these orcas were packed closely together and gave us a great show as they passed by.
Later that afternoon, we again headed to San Juan and spent the whole time with JPod, this time accompanied by a member of L-pod, L57, aka Faith. The whales were heading North, and for our evening trip we made a trek all the way to Pender Island. Here we caught up with J-pod and Faith, and watched from the calm waters these whales socialize and swim back and forth between us and the shore.
The evening was capped off by a gorgeous sunset as we returned to Victoria from a successful and memorable day of whale-watching.