Date: 20-Jul-19

Sequence: 1

Encounter Number: 49

Enc Start Time: 09:07

Enc End Time: 09:55

Vessel: Mike 1

Observers: Mark Malleson

Pods or ecotype: Bigg's Transients

Location: East Sooke

Begin Lat/Long: 48 16.6/123 37.8

End Lat/Long: 48 16.0/123 35.4

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Encounter Summary:

Mark left Victoria harbour at 0817 to head west out the Juan de Fuca with plans to go as far as Swiftsure Bank. The weather was ideal with no wind and clear skies and very little wind forecasted at the western entrance to the Juan de Fuca. At 0907 he caught a glimpse of what he thought could be a dorsal fin in shore towards East Sooke Park. Sure enough there was a small group of killer whales traveling east. The first one he was able to confirm an ID was T046B2. They were split up in 2 groups with T046B1 and her two offspring T046B1A and T046B1B slightly to the south of the rest of the group. They appeared to be traveling quickly but weren't making much ground over the bottom as they had a 2 knot ebb current against them. After a few minutes they all grouped up and were very cooperative allowing him to get some decent shots of T046B1's leucistic calf T046B1B. At 0955 he ended the encounter and passed them off to a couple of commercial whale watch boats and continued west out the Juan de Fuca to Swiftsure Bank.