It is officially official that all three pods (J, K, and L) are here. Earlier this summer, K pod made a brief appearance, but then left for open ocean and wasn’t seen regularly until a few days ago. We are very excited that K27, Deadhead, had a new born calf yesterday! K44, a male, is one of several new babies in the Southern Resident Community this summer. The Center of Whale Research (http://www.whaleresearch.com/index.html) is still conducting their annual Southern Resident Community census and we hope they have their updated numbers with new babies very soon!
Aboard the Sea Hawk today, Captain Bill and Naturalist Tiffany had an awesome day on the water! We first received reports of a superpod of 70+ whales near the Lime Kiln Lighthouse early this morning. The Sea Hawk approached the whales later in the morning near the west side San Juan Island and Henry Island. Tiffany confirmed there were groups of Js and Ks. At one point, Princess Angeline (J17, born in 1977) with her little offspring (J44, Looker, born in late 2010) and the rest of her subgroup surprised our guests and Tiffany by doing an incredibly deep dive and then surfacing near the boat! Of course, Captain Bill immediately shut down the engines to respectfully watch the whales per federal guide lines. Tiffany also added that the whales were displaying an array of amazing full body breaches, spy hops, tail & pectoral fin slaps, in addition to milling and feeding.
Guides Katy and Nick saw whales on their separate 5-hour kayak trips today. Katy and her guests were floating in a kelp bed near shore just north of Kellet Bluff and had a mother and calf pair swim 40 yards off of their rafted boats! Katy confirmed they were members of L pod. Nick’s guests came back saying the had an amazing experience seeing the whales from about 50 yards away while rafted up in a kelp bed! They also saw bald eagles fishing, harbor seals swimming next to their boats, and even several porpoise.
-Brittany