Encounter Summary: 

A group of transients were found in the morning near Partridge Bank so Giles and Dave, who were working in the office at CWR, monitored the whales progress up Haro Strait from the radio talk of the whale watch boats.

Giles and Dave hauled "Orcinus" in the afternoon for a little pressure washing of the hull and missed the transients passing CWR but we soon geared up and headed down to Snug Harbor once we were done. We headed down to Snug and left aboard "Shachi" at 1651. The whales, who turned out to be the T46's and T73A's, had taken a right at Battleship Rock and had entered the western part of Spieden Channel so we went through Mosquito Pass and got on scene about a quarter mile east of Battleship Rock at 1703. The whales were milling as we were approaching but soon began traveling northwest at a medium speed in a fairly tight group. Around 1725 after a long dive, T46E and T73A1 broke off from the others and headed slowly west together. These two were social and tactile. T73A1 had grown a lot in the last year and is now an obvious sprouter. The other whales came up a couple minutes later a couple hundred yards to the north of T46E and T73A1 and were also heading slowly west but began milling. T46F, T73A2, and T73A3 dropped back from the others and appeared to be socializing as they charged around and milled about seventy five yards from their mothers and the others. The three younger whales soon merged back with the larger group and they all moved slowly west while loosely spread out. T46E and T73A1 continued to socialize together just a little to the south of the others who were also milling some as they pointed west and we ended the encounter at 1746 about a mile northwest of Battleship Rock.