Five Star Charter's Fastcat departed at 1400 today to head out to a large group of Transient 'mammal eating' killer whales travelling southwest of Race Rocks in the Strait of Juan De Fuca. We arrived at the whales around 1500 and a large group of Transients travelling west through the strait. We watched them for about about 40 minutes during which they mostly travelled in tight groups with the ocasional long dive of 3 - 5 minutes.
Race Rocks Marine Protected Area with Mount Olympus in the background
It was a little difficult to identify the animals in the group but upon returning home and looking at the photos I was able to identify members of the T100s (T100, T100B, T100C, T100D), the T101s (T101, T102, T101A, T101C), the T124s (T124, T124C, T124E and possibly others. So based on these IDs there were probably at least a dozen animals in the group! Just prior to leaving we spotted even more animals way out west in the strait...so it is likely there were many more whales we didn't see! How lucky for us to have such an amazing group sighting of Transients!
After a wonderful sighting of the the Transients we headed back to the Victoria Harbour taking stopping to check out Race Rocks Marine Protected Area where there were many Steller sea lions (Eumatopias jubatus), a couple of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), Elephant Seals (Mirounga angustirostris) and a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). A 1700 we arrived back in the Victoria Harbour after a beautiful afternoon on the water!
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