Whale Watching Report

An L-pod male does a tailslap upside down.

We started out again today with a low tide exposing several ochre sea stars at the Cap Sante breakwater. We made our first wildlife stop at Colville Island and watched many harbor seals hauled out on the rocks there. Next we arrived on scene with L-pod orcas swimming slowly in a tight resting mode toward Eagle Point. As they got closer to the shore they started to wake up and we saw multiple orca spyhops in a row. L-pod reached the shoreline and appeared to be looking for salmon. Several orcas did tailslaps, and pecoral fin slaps on the surface. Later we had L78, Gaia, L88, Wavewalker, and L2, Grace, swim over and give us some great viewing. Next we said goodbye to L-pod, and cruised over to look at J-pod coming in from offshore. They appeared to also be in a resting pattern with all of them coming up and going down together. It appeared like all the members of J-pod were in this group, and I spotted at least one L-pod orca with them. Soon J-pod started to wake up with several orcas playing in the wake from another boat. We saw one big male spyhop close by, and then a few minutes later a double spyhop with two orcas spyhopping at the same time! That was a perfect way to say goodbye to our resident orcas today. We had a great show. Naturalist Bart Rulon