T123s attack a harbour seal off Gordon Head, Haro Strait!

At 1300 Fastcat departed the Victoria harbour...the seas were calm and the drizzle of the morning had cleared up. We headed east across the Victoria waterfront, past Oak Bay, into Haro Strait and headed toward San Juan Island, Washington. We stopped off the west side of San Juan Island to look for porpoise and were very fortunate to catch a couple glimpses of Dall's porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli). We had a couple short but sweet sightings but they were definitely not interested in us...so we continued on through the Strait.

Haro Strait

View of San Juan Island, Haro Strait

Shortly after leaving the preoccupied porpoises we headed back towards Vancouver Island and soon spotted the whale watching fleet off Gordon Head. We'd had a report of 3 Transient 'mammal eating' killer whales (Orcinus orca) travelling through the north end of Haro Strait and shortly after we saw the other whale watch vessels we got our first glimpse of the blows and fins of the Transients.

The T123s (T123, T123A and young calf probably T123B)

T123A with the seal (to the right of her)

This group of Transient killer whales consisted of 2 females and a very young calf...quite small and showing the orange/pink colouration typical of very young killer whale calves. We watched the animals milling around for a few minutes and soon noticed another animal in with the group. They were hunting a harbour seal and it appeared the calf was getting a lesson on hunting! They pushed the seal around and lunged and rolled and even did a cartwheel at the surface. We were very fortunate to watch see this hunt/calf training session!

T123s attacking a harbour seal

The harbour seal is to the right, near the whale's head

And an even better look at that harbour seal near her head!

After spending an amazing time watching the T123 group hunting we left to see what else we could find as we started to make our way back to the harbour. We went around the south end of Discovery Island where we spotted a lone Stellar sea lion resting on Grinn Rock just off Seabird Point, Discovery Island lighthouse. Everybody got a nice look at this animal and it didn't seem to concerned about our presence...sat up briefly, took a look at us, and then flopped back down to rest in the sun.

Stellar sea lion off Sea Bird Pt, Discovery Island

We continued around the south end of Discovery and went into the Chain Islands off Oak Bay. Trev, our captain, expertly took the boat through the many rocks making up the chain islands so we could get a nice look at pelagic (Phalacrocorax kenyoni) and double-crested (Phalacrocorax auritus) cormorants, a male Harlequin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus) and many harbour seals (phoca vitulina).

Harbour seals hauled out in Oak Bay

The Oak Bay Chain Islands

Leaving the Chain Islands

From the Chain Islands we picked up speed one last time to go the last 20 minutes trip along the Victoria waterfront passing the Victoria Golf Club, Trial Island, Clover Point, Beacon Hill and the Ogden Point breakwater on the way. At the breakwater we waved at the many people walking in the sun. We had big smiles on our faces after having an amazing trip during which we saw Dall's porpoise, hunting Transient killer whales, a Stellar sea lion, harbour seals and many seabirds!

Victoria Golf Course

Trial Island