As our season is winding down, whale sightings are still good! This week, we sighted whales on 5 of 6 tours and orca whales on 4 of 6. We had a tough tour on Sunday mornings, when we didn’t see any whales. This was only our 3rd tour of the year (out of 221 so far) without a whale sighting.
This week we had visits from the T046B1, T046B, and T063/065 families of killer whales.
On our afternoon tour on Sunday, we met up with T063 “Chainsaw” and T065 “Whidbey” up near Moresby Island at the north end of Haro Strait. Chainsaw is a legend here in the Pacific Northwest and known for his very unique dorsal fin that has some big chunks taken out of it. Not long after we arrived on scene, we noticed some direction changes and circling behavior indicating they were likely chasing some prey. Just as we were beginning to think they were likely chasing something, our suspicions were confirmed, when a gigantic boil of blood came rushing up to the surface. It was an intense reminder of the reality of nature. We watched as the whales began doing some prey sharing, consuming whatever it is they had dispatched, likely a harbor seal or harbor porpoise.
We’ve got two more weekends of tours left on our 2024 schedule. We hope that you’ll join us for some fall fun on the water!
