Encounter Summary: 

On a morning where there was no power on most of the north and west sides of San Juan Island, Dave headed over to CWR where there was also no power. After turning on Orca's fleet radio, Dave was relayed a 0930 sighting of whales heading west in Spieden Channel by Goldwing. Since one can't do much in the office anymore in this day and age without electricity, the decision was made to go on a whale search to see if the Spieden Channel whales could be found.

Dave headed down to Snug Harbor and left aboard Shachi at 1025. Imagine had left Snug Harbor about ten minutes before and they went north up the east side of Haro Strait while Shachi took the west side. Shachi headed north past Halibut, Mandarte, and Gooch Islands while stopping at various spots to scan with binoculars in case the whales had shot across Haro Stait already.

Shachi began veering back toward Turn Point and Boundary Pass from the Cooper's Reef area and took a course pointed toward Waldron Island and Mt. Baker. While going around a freighter making the turn around Turn Point and putting up an unusually sharp wake, Dave saw blows off the point between Shachi and Imagine who was coming up the Stuart Island shoreline. After a few anxious minutes, the whales came up again in plain view of both Shachi and Imagine about a mile west of Turn Point.

The whales were the T49A's and T123's and they were moving slowly northeast up Boundary Pass in a tight group. T49A2 was not present again and it is guessed that he/she has dispersed again and is traveling with other whales as it has done repeatedly in the past. The whales continued slowly up Boundary Pass and were pointed toward Gowland Point and Blunden Island when Shachi left at 1205. Radio talk later in the afternoon had the T49A's and T123's up near East Point and pointed towards Patos Island again.