Lots of Biggs Orca

Biggs Orca up North

I had two great tours today and one disappointing one. The day started with a pair of Orca, T77C, and T77D in Georgia Strait. During our second tour, we found a bunch more, and we had lots of Biggs Orca.

Finding ‘Heather’

After watching T77C and T77D for a while on the first tour, we left in search of Humpbacks. We spotted two within a mile of each other. The first and closest one was a Humpback known as “Heather.” She is an easy whale to identify. If you look at my pics and see the underside of her fluke, you will see an “H.” That is a natural H, and Heather was given a hame starting with an H. Our other whale we did not get close enough to identify.

The second tour I had to relocate the pair that had been left earlier, and nobody was with them. After seeing them for a few minutes, I started seeing other blows a half-mile ahead. Another captain catching up to me, also saw the blows. We had found the T34s, T37s, T37As, T36Bs, and the T37Bs. Our count had at least 15 orcas near us. Staying as long as we could and then back to pick up my guests for the 6 pm tour.

Last Tour Was Disappointing

A quick turn around and we were off the dock again. This time we headed straight to the group of T’s up north. The boats that were with them had to leave before we arrived. We started a search scanning in all directions as we traced their anticipated path. I ended up turning back a few miles north of Nanaimo and searching a different direction on the way back. We struck out completely. They might have changed course; they might have even flipped and reversed course. We had Lots of Biggs Orca during the day, but we sure struck out this evening.

It was a disappointing way to end a beautiful day. I searched longer than I should have, we ended up arriving back to Friday Harbor in the dark. Fortunately, it was a calm water day and evening. I used my radar on the way back looking for logs and being fooled several times with the target being birds on the screen. One bird was a couple of hundred yards ahead of me on radar and was staying in the same place on the screen. He was doing 30 knots the same as me.