Date: 01-Dec-18

Sequence: 1

Encounter Number: 105

Enc Start Time: 13:25

Enc End Time: 15:59

Vessel: Mike 1

Observers: Mark Malleson

Pods or ecotype: L POD

Location: South east of Race Rocks

Begin Lat/Long: 48 15.2/123 26.5

End Lat/Long: 48 15.3/123 24.9

​

Encounter Summary:

At 1105 I spotted a group of spread out killer whales over a mile to the south west of Beechey Head while hiking East Sooke Park.
We made our way back into town and I headed out on Mike 1 to find them. I called Gord Rowles as I was leaving the fuel dock at 1255 and had him take a look from his 23rd floor apartment (Crow's Nest) to see if he could see them as I figured they would be within his view by that time. Within a couple of minutes he spotted east bound killer whales south east of Race Rocks slightly west of a group of humpbacks. I made my way out towards the humpbacks with a following sea as it was moderate north east wind. I found a group of 4 humpbacks tight together quite animated in the 2 - 3 foot chop but no sign of the killer whales. Gord hadn't seen them again as the sunlight had gone behind the clouds and the lighting had gone flat making spotting difficult. There were 3 other boats out of Victoria that had also left at 1300 and eventually one of the boats spotted some killer whale slightly south of Race Rocks. After a few minutes of the other boats arriving in the area we could see there were a fair number of them spread out foraging. The first whales identified to the south were the L54's, L84, and L88. The first whale I saw to the north east of the group was L83. I slowly made my way to the south towards the L54's and photographed as many as I could on my way. I finally arrived with L88, L108 and L117 who appeared to be the furthest south animals on a track towards Admiralty Inlet. The light was diminishing so I worked my way back towards the lead animals hoping to get some of the ones I had missed but only came across repeats which included L84 and 110 who seemed to be foraging. The animals to the north were tracking south towards the southern animals. I ended the encounter at 1559 as it was getting too dark to get any decent ID photos and didn't want to risk hitting a log on the way in as their was a lot of debris in the water. I arrived back to Victoria Harbour at 1640.