Friday April 10: T30s and T172 (and many more!) near Saltspring Island!

For this afternoon's trip we ended up going further than usual...all the way past the Swartz Bay ferry terminal and on to Saltspring Island! Shortly after 1300 we departed the harbour and headed east along the Victoria waterfront past Oak Bay, through Baynes Channel and into Haro Strait. We continued north up Haro Strait through Sidney Channel, between James and Sidney Islands, and on toward Saltspring Island where we finally spotted the other whale watch vessels and sosme groups of the 15 Transient 'mammal eating' killer whales (Orcinus orca) reported to be in the area.

Mature male in the T30 group of Transients, T30A

Mature male in the T30 group of Transients, T30A

We spent most of our time watching the T30 group (a mature female T30, her son T30A and her two offspring of undetermined sex) travelling with another female, T172. They spent much of the time doing longer, ~4 minute, dives during which they made a couple of direction changes. They didn't seem to be headed in any particular direction. A little ways south of us we saw some of the other Transients but we could only recognize the mature male, T14, travelling with that group of ~7 animals.

T30s and T172 travelling near Saltspring Island

Just before heading back to Victoria the T30s and T172 went on another long dive and when suddenly we had 2 Stellar sea lions pop up at the surface a few meters from the boat. They were swimming rapidly away from where we'd last seen the whales and definitely looked concerned...especially since they are a source of food for the Transients!

2 Stellar sea lions swimming quickly away from the whales...fortunate enough to be left by the group of Transients but definitely looked concerned!

On the way back to Victoria Captain Trev took us past the Swartz Bay ferry terminal and then through a nice little channel between Coal Island and Vancouver Island. We saw a couple of eagles, a juvenile and an adult, and many many harbour seals in the water...lucky for them the Transients were not passing through as well!

Swartz Bay ferry terminal (ferries to Vancouver)


Bald eagle sitting in pass between Coal Island and Vancouver Island

So it was another awesome day on the water watching the T30s, T172 and T14 with ~6 more Transients (about 12 whales!), 2 Stellar sea lions, many harbour seals and some bald eagles!