Top two rows – The epic T-Party meet up of 12 orcas on 6/28 by John Wargowski
3rd row – some individuals from the T-Party in Bellingham Bay during the dinner cruise by Lincoln Humphry
4th row – the gray whale in Lopez Sound on 6/27 by Lincoln Humphry
June 23 – Naturalist Elliot
T100s at Clements Reef & 123s+124A4s at Pea Pod Rocks
This day flew by! The weather was beautiful and as soon as we were off the dock we were headed for whales, no time to even find seals or sea lions. We caught up with the T100s near Sucia Island around 12:30. This was only my second time ever seeing Hutchins and Laurel and Estrella (T100,100C,100E). Before long they were on the hunt, and it took them in between Clement’s Reef and Sucia. It soon became difficult to keep up with them. It was around this time that we were made aware of seven Biggs’ eastbound at Matia Island, not far off. Meaning on our way north, we passed right by em and didn’t see em! We left the 100s to their hunt and went to go catch up with the group who eluded us earlier. By the time we caught up with them the group (t123’s and 65Bs) they were killing harbor seals at Pea Pod Rocks. From the boat it looked like they were right up on the rocks to catch their prey! All in all a very good day.
June 24 – Naturalist Elliot
T123s in the Strait of Georgia near Vancouver
Long haul today! Nothing close to home so yet again we had no time to search for our pinniped friends. We left the dock and went straight north to catch up with the 123’s off Vancouver in the Strait of Georgia. When we finally got on scene they seemed very sleepy, long downtimes, and consistent direction. Once we were on scene all the other boats left so we were charged with the task of keeping track of four whales spread out over half a mile with long down times. By the end my eyes were sore. We followed them north for nearly an hour. Being so far from home we knew we needed to turn around and head home soon, and right as Captain Cassidy gave the five minute warning, out of nowhere Lucky breached! Then Stanley and Sidney turned 90° straight towards him. Then the hunt was on, we got to watch them kill a harbor porpoise for the next 15 minutes and then turned and burned back home, and hit the dock with 5 minutes to spare.
June 25 – Naturalist Elliot
65Bs+124A4s at Waldron Island
We stopped by the Sinclair navigation cans and saw some of our summer resident Stellers first. Then we were off to Waldron to find killer whales! This was my first time seeing the 65Bs and I was excited. We caught up with them by Waldron off Cowlitz Bay, and our biggest struggle was keeping track of them. There was moderate chop and a fierce breeze, and these whales didn’t surface in the same direction twice for an hour and a half straight. They certainly kept us on our toes. Still always a gift to see a new matriline.
June 26 – Naturalist Lauren
A dramatic change in the weather from 80° and sunny to 60° and cloudy, but good thing the whales don’t mind. Our day took us into the heart of the San Juan’s. We caught up with the T49A pod led by T49A Nan, and 5 of her 7 kiddos. This pod is very special to see as Nan’s youngest was born this year. We got great views of that little one, 49A7 Nimbus, right next to mom. Their small dorsal fin is absolutely precious. This pod gave us a good idea of just how tricky tracking the direction of whales can be as they flipped a 180° on us. They demonstrated a unique behavior called logging, floating just under the surface, dorsal fins out of the water. This behavior usually indicates a meal being shared between the family.
Lucky for us, another pod of orcas were spotted to the north. We ventured that way and said hello to the T65B’s led by Chunk. Chunk had her three sons with her today. We got an idea of how different dorsal fins can look, from the scars/nicks taken out to the curvature of the fin. Super fun to hang out with two different pods today.
We saw bobbing harbor seal heads on our way out and a mature bald eagle on our way home at Spindle rocks. Backtracking is always fun because new critters come around even to the places we have already been.
June 27 – Naturalist Lauren
What a beautiful day. The sun was out with some meandering clouds that gave a true sense of PNW weather. We had a beautiful cruise along the inner islands and into Lopez Sound which we don’t usually get down to. And we were fortunate to find a gray whale down there, It is always optimistic seeing healthy gray whales feeding close to shore. This whale, CRC-2702, is a new whale to the Salish Sea, not considered to be a “sounder”, a group of grays who have found a yummy feast of ghost shrimp here.
This gray spent a lot of time at the surface for us, showing us a great display of their powerful exhalations, mottled coloration of their back and their dorsal knuckles. This individual had a very unique white spot on their back right side, a good identification marker. As well as see lice visible on its back. This whale has been hanging out in this bay for the past few weeks, we were lucky to see them cruise into Lopez Pass. No other boats have reported this whale circling in this pass. We saw the great power it takes for whales to beat upstream as the flood currents were rushing in hard. A cool unique encounter with this gray whale.
June 28 – Naturalist Kara
I don’t believe there are words eloquent enough to describe the whale show we experienced today! Today was probably one of Naturalist Kara’s top five whale watches of all time. We spent time with five different pods throughout our 5 hour trip on this gloriously sunny June day.
We started our day with the Alaska brothers, T125A and T128, (Flotsam and Jetsam) while they were spread out looking for food by Blakely Island. These two brothers have some really distinctive dorsal fins, with some pretty large notches out of the middle of them. We don’t often see them in our range, so this already started off the day right.
We left the brothers behind for a new report of orcas. As we were making our way over, the T123s suddenly popped up into view unexpectedly. We slowed on down and changed our plan to watch these guys as they started heading toward the 2 whales that another captain had picked up. They formed up in a little social gathering and started doing some tail slapping, when we noticed a group of 6 whales in the far distance start porpoising to come join the group. We suddenly had a T-party of 12 whales from 4 different pods! The activity today was unbelievable, with tail slapping, peduncle throws (back half cartwheel) chin slaps and breach after breach! It was pretty much non-stop action.
We ended the day with what we thought would be a bit of a cool-down, watching some Stellar sea lions off the Sinclair buoy, but these big guys were busy fighting over space, and jumping in and out of the water as well. All the wildlife out there seemed to be having the Sunday of their lives!
T-Party:
T123s (Sidney, Stanley, Lucky, Darcy)
T75Bs (Pebbles, Jasper, Rubble, Petra)
T46B3s (Sedna and Munro-2025 calf)
T77D- (Alcyon)
Separately- T125A and T128 (Flotsam and Jetsam)
