Encounter Summary: 

Barbara Bender called Dave at home somewhere around 0700 to report L pod calls on the Lime Kiln hydrophone. After some bleary-eyed scrambling, Dave met Erin and Barbara at Snug Harbor and left aboard Orca a little before 0830. Jeanne Hyde had reported L pod whales heading south at Hannah Heights at 0730.
Orca finally found whales at 0850 near the Salmon Bank buoy pointed south in a patch of tidal slop. This was L95, L110, and L115 and they seemed to be socializing. L83 was also in the general vicinity. Other whales were hard to find and we had to look a little in order to find a couple more whales almost a mile to the east of our first threesome in the direction of Cattle Pass. This was L82 and L116 and they soon began heading northwest up South Beach. L27 showed up offshore of these two.
We saw another group inshore of the L82's and this turned out to be the L55's and L86's and they started porpoising north. L27 and the L82's were on the periphery of this group but they all spread out before they got to Eagle Point. L106 and L109 were goofing around with one another.
We dropped back to the trailers to see if we could find any more whales and found L95, L110, and L115 again who were still hanging out together. We also found L47 in the same area. Then we headed north again to see if we could find any of the L26's and L72's. We made it up to LandBank but only found members of the L4's plus L91 again. The leaders near Deadmans Bay turned around and all the whales appeared to be headed back south. We left all the L55's heading slowly south near shore at Edwards Point at 1227.
Despite the whales being very spread out, we were confident we photographed all the whales present which means we only had the fifteen whales of the L4's, L47's, and L95. L72, L105, L90, and L92 must still be off the west coast somewhere with the rest of the L's. It is interesting that L95 was with the L4's and L47's but not the rest of the L43's or the L26's. However, we have seen this sort of split with this part of L pod before. We are hoping the rest of L pod shows up shortly.

Note: Photos are cropped