We had another absolutely lovely week of whale watching in the Salish Sea. Unfortunately, our long streak of orca whale sightings finally ended at 48 in a row. On Thursday, we did not sight any whales on the morning tour (only our second tour of the year out of 127 with no whales!), and in the afternoon we had a nice encounter with a humpback whale. However, the orcas quickly came back and we have now seen them on every tour since last Thursday. We also had several awesome encounters with humpback whales this week, a couple of nice Minke whale sightings, and a bonus encounter with a gray whale!
This week we had encounters with the T034, T037, T109A2, T046B, T077, and T117 families of orcas.
On Friday evening’s tour we met up with the T077 family of orcas who spent the better part of the week down in Saratoga passage. We caught up with them cruising north, seemingly in “travel-mode.” About 20 minutes into our encounter, out of nowhere there was a big commotion in the water with some massive splashes, and we quickly realized the hunt was on. The family had found a harbor seal. We watched as they made quick work of him, and the behavior quickly moved from hunting, to prey-sharing (AKA – eating). As they began to prey-share their way along, one of the whales popped up unexpectedly right underneath the setting sun, in a full spyhop. It was truly an epic moment.
We had a bit of rain show up yesterday, but the weather looks to be clearing up and pretty nice for the foreseeable future. We hope to see you for some fresh air and a Salish Sea adventure!
