We had another wonderful week of adventuring in the Salish Sea. We saw whales on all tours, and killer whales on 8 of 9 tours.
This week we had visits from the T035A, T046, T036, T137, T124D, T101, T037A, T100, and T109A families of killer whales.
On our Full Day Tour on Thursday, we had an epic trip filled with two different big groups of killer whales – 23 orcas in total! But the day was highlighted by a couple of very unusual occurrences while we were out and about! While out traversing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, we came across a Turkey Vulture stuck in the water very far offshore, attempting to swim to shore. Its wings were water logged and it was unable to fly. Upon encountering the poor bird, we could see how exhausted it was. We nudged the boat toward the bird to offer it a right to shore, and it accepted! The bird immediately swam over to the boat, and hopped onboard! We then gave it a ride to shore where the bird was able to hop off and make it safely back into the rocks where we hope it was able to get some rest and dry its wings out. Hopefully it will be okay!
The second incredible moment we witnessed happened when a humpback whale ended up with a harbor seal in its mouth! We were watching a humpback whale named “Zillion” lunge feed through many bait balls in the area. On one particular lunge, afterwards we noticed the whale kept opening and closing its mouth, which we found a bit odd. Upon further inspection of photos, we saw that it had a Harbor seal in its mouth it accidentally engulfed while going after the baitfish. Zillion was able safely “cough” out the harbor seal. It was a sight to see and a crazy photograph that Brooke was able to capture.
We have just about a month left in our 2024 whale watching season. Don’t miss your chance to get out on the water for an epic fall adventure!
