Encounter Summary: 

Jeanne Hyde called Dave at home to report that a group of transients were heading north in Haro Strait a couple miles southeast of Kelp Reef. Since Dave had to refuel Orca anyway after the last encounter, he went out to see the transients along the way and left Snug Harbor at 1323.

Orca got on scene about a mile or so southeast of Kelp Reef at 1334 to find the T2C's, T34's, T37B's and T37 traveling southeast in a tight group. They continued southeast, varying their speeds between medium and slow until 1357 when they abruptly changed direction, turned back north, and pointed in the direction of Open Bay.

At about 1420, about a mile and a half west of CWR, the transients began breaching multiple times and may have made a kill. Unfortunately, Orca was too far away at that point to tell what they were going after and if they actually made the kill. The whales soon began traveling again in the direction of Open Bay. Just a couple of minutes later, one of the adult females leapt out of the water in an apparent attempt to terrify a rhinoceros auklet but the auklet fluttered away and no whales pursued it any farther.

As the whales approached the south end of Mitchell Bay, they slowed down and began resting. While the whales were on a long dive, a large raft of rhinoceros auklets and common murres suddenly began skittering away in all directions so one of the whales must have made an effort to spook them. Since it was starting to rain, Orca left the whales at 1454 while they were still resting off the mouth of Open Bay. The transients turned around again while Orca was in Roche Harbor fueling as Ken photographed them near the reef from CWR's porch as they headed south toward Bellevue Point.