Date: 15-Jun-2018

Sequence: 1

Encounter Number: 39

Enc Start Time: 08:05

Enc End Time: 09:40

Vessel: Orcinus

Observers: Dave Ellifrit, Michael Weiss

Pods or ecotype: J pod

Location: Haro Strait

Begin Lat/Long: 48 32.58/123 10.30

End Lat/Long: 48 27.58/123 03.40

 

Encounter Summary:

Jane Cogan called early in the morning to report that she was hearing and then seeing J pod whales heading north. Dave and Michael met at Snug Harbor and left in the boat just a little before 8am. We saw whales shortly after leaving the harbor off Smugglers Cove. Members of the J16s were now heading slowly south in Andrews Bay with J26 traveling about a quarter mile behind and offshore of J16, J42, and J50. These four whales appeared to be the trailers now that the whales were heading south and we figured J36 must be down island traveling with other whales.
We left the J16s a little before 0830 off Bellevue Point and headed south to False Bay to see if we could find more whales. After waiting for about ten minutes and scanning and not seeing much of anything to the south, we finally heard a blow and saw a couple of whales approach from the north. This was J37 and J49 and they were spread from each other and foraging. J36 also showed up in the same area and continued heading south. The J19s appeared from the north and were also spread out with J41 in the lead. J51 was goofing around nearer to J19 and he breached on two occasions. The rest of J pod and L87 must have been south of Eagle Point already. The J16s were about five minutes behind the J19s and we had another look at them off the south end of False Bay as they continued slowly south toward Eagle Point. The encounter ended there at 0940.