Shots from Helen Nickerson on 8/18/24 of the T49A’s near Waldron Island
Aug 18
Rough reports today after our out of season August rain storm, with a lot of fog in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Haro Strait. These are usually easy locations for us to get early whale sightings.
Today was a late day to find orcas, we went through the middle islands and got a lot of great moody foggy views of islands and the normal seals and sea lion sightings. We cruised by Spieden today and were lucky to see 50+ Japanese Sika deer all over the shoreline!
We traveled up to East Point in the hopes of finding a baleen whale before we finally got a shore report from Waldron for the T49A’s. We turned quickly and were able to spend around a half hour watching them surface, with a few glimpses of tails.
T49A’s: Nam, Nat, Neptune, Nebula, 2022 calf.
Aug 19
We were headed to go through the islands to search for reported for possible minkes, because there were no other reports, when we spotted dorsals and spouts off of Cypress.
Capt Cassidy turned the boat around and we started scanning and found four orcas!
As other boats came on scene they helped identify them as the T75B’s. We spent around 1.5 hours with the whales as they milled around then headed toward Pea Pod Rocks.
We headed for Sucia Island, then on our way home, we stopped back by the T75B’s for another 20 minutes. Right as we were about to leave the whales came in close, so we had to cut the engines and wait them out, which of course we are happy to do. Of course we ended up getting great looks.
Aug 20
We headed up to Sucia to join up with a T-party report! They were starting to split up upon our arrival, and we ended up following the T49A’s. Which was a good choice as we got to see what looked like them celebrating a hunt, including a breach and two spy hops!
We spent our hour with them, then left to backtrack and join up with the other two pods from the T-party. We got 30 minutes with the 37A’s and 75B’s.
We stopped by Clemens Reef before heading back to Bellingham and got to see seals and sealions.
Aug 21
We really pushed our range today and headed straight for Port Townsend to see the T99’s. We got there just in time to see them celebrating a harbor porpoise catch. We got to see lots of splashing and tail slaps as well as a double spy hop! A very rare happening.
It was a great show, and worth the trip. We got to spend an hour with them and still had time to stop for seals and sea lions.
Aug 22
We decided to go south today – for no particular reason but I’m so glad we did! We ended up seeing the T60s today. At first their behavior was just traveling, but we think they quickly snagged a meal with one quick
movement. They started immediately showing more surface activity, like waving their tail flukes and one started swimming on its back! We even had the lucky chance to see not only one, but two spy hops!
After making a turn during their deep dive, they popped up close to the boat and we had to shut off engines. They hung out right at the stern for a while which is always an amazing treat. On our way back we also got to see a Minke baleen whale. It was feeding in pretty shallow water and was sticking Its head out of the water too which is not super common.
Aug 24
Rain was pouring this morning, with low visibility, so we briefly stopped at Viti and the buoy there to look at our local pinnipeds. We had goals to travel through the middle today, but got a very timely report of orcas by North Pender Island.
Changing our direction north allowed us to find blue skies! It was a long journey northwest, but became a great day on the water.
The orcas were hugging the shoreline at North Pender when we arrived but were quickly traveling southeast to a better place far away to watch them.
They started tail slapping, proposing and did many headstands, with a lot of surface activity overall. As we started to leave, the T099s gave a few spy hops to check us out! Very active and lovely day overall.
T137s – Loon & Jack
T99s- Bella & Barakat
Possibly joined by T36B’s and T65A’s as we left.
