An exciting day in the Salish Sea with the Biggs T18s and J Pod Killer Whales. We saw the Biggs pod first for a bit then we headed north to see J Pod. Before that, we saw Harbor Seals, Cormorants and a few silly Seagulls on a log.
The first two J Pod whales we saw were J17 Princess Angeline and J53 Kiki her three-year-old calf. Kiki is the sister of J35 Tahlequah who gave birth to a calf that lived for only half an hour. Tahlequah carried her baby girl on her head grieving for an unheard of 17 days. This has been heart-wrenching to see.
J47 Notch was there. He is Tahlequah’s 8-year-old son. We saw J26 Mike, a big male that likes to do bellyflops. We saw L87 Onyx who is the only whale we are aware of who has ever switched pods when he was adopted by J2 Granny. When she was still with us if she was there L87 Onyx was close by.
J38 Cookie was there too. He is growing up quick with an adult looking dorsal fin. He is the brother of J34 DoubleStuf and son of J22 Oreo. We did not see, that I could tell, J16 Slick or her ailing daughter J50 Scarlet. They were widespread for a couple miles. I saw at least a dozen breaches but as widespread as they were I was not able to catch a single one on camera today.
While we were with J Pod a research vessel showed up with a drone flying over the whales and getting in the way of our viewing but they do have work to do. On our way back we saw a couple of Stellar Sea Lions at East Point in Canada.
A pretty good day with the Biggs T18s and J Pod. Back at the harbor, we also saw Sea Shepherd’s sailing vessel the Martin Sheen tied up at the dock.
