Five Star Charter's Fastcat departed at 1000 from the Victoria Harbour. We travelled into the Strait of Juan De Fuca and check out some of the shallow bank areas to follow up on reports of Minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata). These are great areas to check for a variety of feeding marine mammals; the upwelling caused as water moves from deeper waters to shallower waters provides the nutrients and oxygen. These are so important in driving the production of phytoplankton which is fed on by zooplankton which is then fed on by small schooling fish such as herring and sand lance which attracts larger fish species, marine mammals and birds.
Just after we reached Hein Bank, just west offshore of San Juan Island and Salmon Bank, we spotted a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) struggling with a ray it was feeding on. It was pretty cool to see the seal trying to eat the ray while the ray's tail whipped around.
We moved further southwest to a report of Minke whales off the south end of Hein Bank. We arrived where another whale watch vessel the Glacier Spirit was just leaving a couple of Minke whales but after spending about ten minutes looking for the animals we decided to head back north toward Beaumont Shoals where some other vessels were watching more minke whales. At last we spotted a whale...and even got a couple pretty good passes!
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