We all cannot believe this wonderful luck we’ve been having! The weather on San Juan Island has been perfect. It’s been chilly at night, but the days are crisp and comfortable. Everyone on the island is in full-on Autumn Coziness mode! Pumpkins, winter squash at the local Farmers’ Market, and harvest celebrations. The whales must know that we are all in love with the fall wonderful-ness, because they are still here too :).
Captain Nancy and Naturalist Kevin had a group of very excited guests on the Sea Hawk yesterday. At first, Nancy & Kevin didn’t have any reports of killer whales in the area. Remember, the SRKW population does head towards South Puget Sound (think Seattle) in the winter months before heading out to open ocean in January & February to feed on Chinook salmon. They did, however, have reports of humpbacks! The Sea Hawk headed towards the east side of Vancouver Island and encountered a humpback that displayed an array of fluke-up dives. Cool!
Nancy got a report of Transient Orcas coming their way! They said goodbye to their humpback friend and took off towards Oak Bay, which is near the east side of Victoria (still on Vancouver Island). Kevin quickly identified this group of killer whales as the T18s, which consist of T18 Esperanza (F≤1974), T19 Mooyah (F≤1969), T19B Galiano (M1995), and T19C Spouter (2001). Notice that these whales are named a bit differently then our SRKWs. The mother, T19, is named with the standard alpha-numeric system. Then, her offspring are named alpha-numeric-alpha. This helps keep track of how each whale is related to one another because they have very different pod structures. The naming will continue to follow this pattern.
Anyways! The T18 killer whales were circulating around some of the small islands in Oak Bay, presumably hunting for seals. Then, the transients took off across the Haro Strait directly towards San Juan Island. Kevin estimated they were traveling at about 6 knots an hour. That’s speedy!
Guide KJ had a perfect afternoon kayak trip. Again, the water was flat calm and they saw harbor seals, bald eagles, and several Columbian black-tailed deer. Did you know that harbor seals can dive up to 1500 feet!? That’s as deep as the deepest part of Haro Strait!
Be sure to check out our Facebook page for more regular updates! Britt just posted some really cool photos of past kayak trips.
Also, our next whale watch trip on the Sea Hawk will be Saturday October 22, 2011 at 1:00pm. Check for another blog update after that!