Thursday, August 21

Today’s tour sent us to Constance Bank south east of Victoria. There we met up with 2 traveling Transient (mammal eating) orcas. We watched as they rose from and dived below the amazingly calm ocean water. We enjoyed getting a good look at these large mammals. The beauty of the tour was that we were watching one mature female and her mature son, giving us a nice comparison in the size and social structure of the animals. We also went through the Race Rocks marine park and watched seals and sea lions as they saw through the bull kelp beds looking for food and laid on the rocks trying to stay warm in the chilly summer air.

On our way out of the harbour at 1pm we had word that the Transient orcas we viewed in the morning were west bound and out of our travelling range. But fortunately we also received reports of Resident (fish eating) orcas between Lime Kiln Light House and Kellet Bluffs on the San Juan Islands east of Victoria. We were pleased to see that we had 2 different pods with us. Both J-pod (25 members) and L-pod (42 members) were foraging for salmon north bound. We had a great view as the whales could be seen in all directions. We had passes from mothers and calves, juvenile males and fully mature males with 6 foot dorsal fins. It is had to believe that the crew are fortunate enough to see such sights almost daily.