Whale Watching Report

We headed north today because our resident pods swam up toward the Fraser River last night. On our way up we saw harbor porpoises in several spots. We reached the orcas southeast of Point Roberts swimming southward very slowly. The first group we visited included Ruffles, J1, Granny, J2, Canuck, L7, and Lulu, L53. These four orcas gave us some great parallel viewing as they cruised along very slowly. Groups of orcas were spread out over miles and we spent time visiting several groups. The next group we watched included mostly K-pod orcas like Georgia, K11, Sekiu, K22, Spock, K20, and Comet. L87, Onyx, was also in this group, perhaps with romance on his mind. Later two of the orcas seemed to be having a breaching competition as they did four breaches in a row. At the very end of our visit we cruised up to look at the leaders in the superpod again. We got another good look at Granny while another orca did a spyhop right behind her! On our way back to the dock we spotted a Steller sea lion cruising along near Guemes Island and we stopped to watch him for a while. Other wildlife we saw today included lots of common murres, harbor seals, red-necked phalaropes, double-crested cormorants, and pelagic cormorants. What a great day it was! Naturalist Bart Rulon