Orca Whale Superpod In Sight!
One of many tailslaps today!"Sunshine and lots of Orca Whales!" reports Captain Carl from the Island Explorer 3! Stay tuned to the Whale Report for details on today's tour from Naturalist Bart Rulon! The trip today started out with a bald eagle sighting just as we left Cap Sante Marina. Our three resident orca pods finally returned to the Salish Sea today!! Knowing they were on there way in from the ocean we headed staight out west to catch them as they swam back into US waters. Along the way we saw a bunch of harbor seals at Colville Island, and hundreds of harbor porpoises and common murres in open water. The water conditions were about as ideal as could be for the second day in a row. It was so calm that you could see harbor porpoises surfacing for miles and miles. When we first arrived on scene with the orcas they were spread out over several miles just south of Victoria and east of Race Rocks. The first group we watched was Baba, L26, Crewser, L92, and Ballena, L90. One of them did a cartwheel to the side, creating a big splash. We could see orcas spread out all the way toward shore. Occasionally we would see a breach here and there in the distance. Next Racer, L72, and Fluke, L105 came in for a surprise visit. They swam right up next to us for some great close up viewing. Then out of nowhere it seemed a few more orcas showed up in front of them and one of them performed about 10-15 tailslaps in a row, all at close range. At the time it appeared like they were chasing some salmon around. Other orcas we saw included Cappuccino, K21, Skana, L79, and Blackberry, J27. We definitely had all three pods present. Captain Carl had us lined up perfectly for photos several times with the orcas right in front of Mount Baker! Even as we had to pull away from the orcas we kept coming across more and more of them since they were so spread out. Whale traffic is the best kind of traffic to get stuck in! On the way back we saw some Dall's porpoises and one more bald eagle to cap off another great September day! Naturalist Bart Rulon
posted by Island Adventures Whale Report @ 5:58 PM
0 Comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home