We departed at 0900 this morning on Five Star Charter's Fastcat and shortly after departing the Victoria Harbour were greeted off the Victoria waterfront with the many sailboats of the Swiftsure sailing regatta. The race had just begun and so we were treated to all the boats flying their sails trying to travel west in a flood tide i.e. moving east, and nearly no wind! Not a very dramatic start to the race but very beautiful for us to see!
Sailboats in the Swiftsure regatta off the Victoria waterfront
Sailboats in the Swiftsure regatta off the Victoria waterfront
After departing the harbour and leaving the Swiftsure boats behind us we headed southeast in the Strait of Juan De Fuca towards Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands, Washington state. We were heading to a report of killer whales coming towards us down Rosario Strait. It took us about an hour and 20 minutes to reach the report and when we arrived we found members of J pod in the southern 'Resident' fish eating killer (Orcinus orca) whale community (Center for Whale Research killer whale facts). They were travelling quickly around the south end of Lopez Island towards Salmon Bank and San Juan Island. Just before the whales reached us we spotted many harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) hauled out on the rocks near Colville Island off of Lopez Island.
Harbour seals hauled out off of Lopez Island
J19, Schachi, 30 year old female travelling quickly off of Lopez Island
J41, J19's 4 year old daughter (note: although these are nice close photos they were taken with a 300 mm lens...the whale is not as close as it appears!)
Possibly J42, the 2 year old calf of J16, Slick
Above 2 photos: J16, Slick, 37 year old J pod female
Although I didn't identify all the members of J pod I had a nice look at J19, Schachi, a 30 year old female with her 4 year old daughter and the the J16s, or Slick's, family. J16's family consists of J26, Mike, and 18 year old male; J33, Keet, a 13 year old male; J36, Alki, a 10 year old female; and J42, a 2 year old female. We watched J pod until noon and then had to leave them to start heading back to Victoria...it was a bit of a longer distance to travel to J pod today but it was a nice sighting and we got a nice look at some of the members of the pod!
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