Perseverance Key to Seeing Whales -SRKW's & Humpback

I started out heading south, stopping to see Bald Eagles, Great Blue Heron, Black Oystercatchers flying by, and Stellar Sea Lions. The water conditions were beautiful though it was a bit chilly today.

After leaving the islands, I made my way down to Hein Bank in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and then headed west. I was scanning for Orca with a destination of a group of Humpback Whales. When I was south of Victoria BC, word came that Orcas were seen north of the islands in the opposite direction we had gone.

My guests did not have to be back to the dock by a specific time, so we headed north. Another pair of Humpbacks were in our path to see the Orca. When we caught up to the Humpbacks, they were inside the Pender Island Southern Resident Exclusionary Zone, and I could not follow them in without breaking Canadian law. We also saw a good number of Dall’s Porpoise in passing and later a smaller group.

On the way, we learned the Orca spotted were Southern Resident Killer Whales. As of June 1st, it is illegal for any vessel to view Southern Residents in Canada. I continued in hopes that they would maintain their course and cross into USA waters. When we could make them out a couple of miles out, we stopped to view another pair of Humpback whales. I think it was two. They never showed on the surface at the same time, but the pattern was too sporadic to be one whale. While viewing them, we observed about a dozen Greebs. We have 172 species of Sea Birds here in the Salish Sea.

While watching the Humpback, the SRKW’s were continuing south. We left the Humpback and headed south into USA waters, just a 100′ on the USA side of the border and waited for the Rezies to come our way. Again, my guests did not have to get back, so we stayed. Our tour ended up being five hours long.

Eventually, they did cross and were trending south in general but not in a big hurry to get anywhere as they were playing and milling around. I put the hydrophone down, but they were not vocalizing. I did hear some echolocation clicking but no vocals.

We had views of J22 Oreo with her son J38 Cookie, J26 Mike, and J27 Blackberry. I think I saw L85 Mystery, a big broad dorsal fin. In one of my shots, I got the top half of J47’s dorsal fin, but it was enough to identify him as Notch, he was swimming right alongside J26 Mike. We saw the new calf J56 Tofino with mom J31 Tsuchi, J42 Echo, and many others, including more L’s.

A beautiful day to see Whales, Orcas, Pinnipeds, and Seabirds in the Salish Sea. It was a bit dark but it was so nice to see the southern residents, it has been a while.