This evening we headed from Victoria harbour with cruise ship passengers on the last leg of their Alaska cruise. Tomorrow they're back in Seattle and headed home and this evening was a nice grand finale to the cruise!
We departed just before 1900 on Five Star's Fastcat and headed east in the Strait of Juan De Fuca towards Haro Strait. When we arrived to a report of J pod they were spread out in Haro Strait from the False Bay area of San Juan Island to Beaumont Shoals on the Canadian side of the Strait. We were fortunate enough to watch J pod travelling with a few K pod whales. Upon arriving we found the whales very spread out and foraging.
K25, Scoter in Haro Strait
K25 on a foraging dive under the boat
K25, Scoter
The first two whales I was able to identify were K25, Scoter, and J33, Keet. We were even fortunate enough to see K25 doing some cartwheels and being very active at the surface as he was hunting a salmon! After watching those two animals for a while we made our way from the San Juan side of the strait to Beaumont Shoals where our other vessel, the Supercat, told us there were many more animals. When we arrived we saw a whale do some half breaches in the distance and then we saw J27, Blackberry, an 18 year old (nearly mature!) male foraging with K20, Spock, and her calf, K38. It was very interesting watching this group of Ks foraging with J pod!
J pod member with the Olympic Mountains, Washington State
Sunset!
Cruise ship off the west side of San Juan Island
Above three photos are J27, Blackberry
K20, Spock, a 23 year old female who was believed at one time to be a young male
Just before 2100 the sun was starting to get low in the sky at so we had to leave the whales and start to make our way back to the harbour. It was a lovely ride back in the sunset and we were very pleased to have had such a nice evening trip!
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