Orca in all directions
Before we left the dock this morning, we knew we had Orca up north and Orca on the west side of San Juan Island. The weather on the west side was pretty sloppy. Vessels were reporting 3′ and 4′ seas. I opted to go north, further but only 1′ and 2′ seas expected up to that way. We had Killer Whales all around us.
I snapped a shot of a Rhinoceros Auklet flying by. Not quite in focus but good enough to see how he gets his name with that horn on his beak.
Northern whales in nicer water
The northbound group of whales turned east, and we eventually caught up with them, but the weather was also building. We were ok going slow with the waves and kind of ok taking photos, but it was getting to be a bit rough. I was planning to head for a buoy with a couple of Stellar Sea Lions on it, but the weather was slowing us down.
Humpback in Boundary Pass
Once we hit Boundary Pass on the way back, it was smooth as silk, almost anyway, just ripples on the water. We slowed down to view a Humpback whale whose name is “Stitch.” The other Humpback whale in the area was Divot, but we did not see him. After a couple of dives, Stitch managed to lose all of us, which was six boats searching. I think he doubled back towards the other whale. He was doing long dives too.
Long haul north
For the afternoon tour, I knew I was not going back to the rough water we had on the morning run. A pod of Orca had been spotted in Swanson Channel and moving north inside the islands. I thought this would mean much nicer water than what we had in Georgia Strait. As we were nearing the pod we were headed for I got word they were now lost. Another boat found a group in the middle of Georgia Strait, so we made our way back out into the rough water since we were already up there. As it turned out, the water was much calmer than it had been on the first tour. It was not flat but much more manageable.
Lots of Orca
The first two whales we saw happened to be the first two I had taken photos of on the morning tour. We had members of T124A’s, T86A1, T36A’s, T36B’s, T99’s. T46’s and T65A’s all in the same area.
On the morning tour, the two pods we had were in travel mode and not doing a whole lot. The afternoon tour though they were very playful, tail slapping, breaching, and just having fun together. We had Killer Whales all around us.
Heading Home
On our way back we looked for the lost pod from an hour earlier near the shoreline but no luck. We transited Active Pass on the way back with much nicer weather for the return trip home.
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