Date: 23-Jan-17

Sequence: 1

Encounter Number: 6

Enc Start Time: 14:17

Enc End Time: 15:10

Vessel: Mike 1

Observers: Mark and Hanna Malleson

Pods or ecotype: Jpod

Location: Pillar Point

Begin Lat/Long: 48 15.3 124 04.9

End Lat/Long: 48 13.4 124 03.6

 

Encounter Summary:

We left Victoria harbour at 1128 hours to go for a search in clear skies and calm waters. We made our first stop east of Race Rocks as we saw large numbers of gulls gathered around a bait ball. We scanned for a few minutes before continuing west favouring the Canadian side of Juan de Fuca Strait. With several stops along the way for scanning we decided to work our way across to the American side of the strait. North of Pillar Point Mark noticed what turned out to be killer whales. As we got closer we were able to ID J27 with J41. We were able to spot a few others scattered to the south. We later ID'd L87, J17 with her calf J53, J36 and her calf J52. The whales were spread out and did not seem to be in a rush to go anywhere. We witnessed a little bit of foraging but no obvious feeding. We left the group as we were not able to find any others and we wanted to confirm IDs of a group of transients that 4ever Wild had found earlier 18 miles to the east.