EncDate:24/06/22 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:35

ObservBegin:03:18 PM

ObservEnd:07:30 PM

Vessel:Orcinus

Staff:Dave Ellifrit

Other Observers:Katie Jones, Rachel John

Pods:J, L

LocationDescr:Haro Strait

Start Latitude:48 25.10

Start Longitude:123 04.06

End Latitude:48 27.21

End Longitude:123 05.25

 

EncSummary:

We were in the office catching up after the previous two day’s encounters while monitoring sightings of whales in the area. After finally deciding to go out on SRs that we had heard were off Eagle Point, the team left Snug Harbor at 1445 and headed down the west side of SJI. About a half an hour later, we saw our first whale about 3 miles southwest of Eagle Point and the encounter began at 1518. This was L85 and he was traveling north back toward San Juan Island. The rest of the L12s also showed up and were spread out in singles, pairs, and the L94s were in a group of three. The whales spread out even more off False Bay and began foraging. For the next couple of hours, the L12s foraged back and forth between Pile Point and the south end of False Bay.  
Earlier, we had heard that J pod was coming down Boundary Pass. Around 1815, the L12s began acting like they might be hearing J pod and began heading north to greet them. J pod and the L12s merged near Deadmans Bay and all the whales continued traveling down island. We waited a bit for the whales to pass Hannah Heights and then got on a few spread out whales near Kanaka Bay including L25, L94, J39, J40, and the J31s. There were several other groups offshore and we went to check them out. We passed a small group that included the J22s on our way to a larger group to the west of them. This group included J16, J26, J44, J46, J53, L113, and L119 and was active and social. J16 breached once and L119 did a belly flop. After getting pictures of this group, we moved to the southwest to get one more group before calling it quits. The last group we checked out was the L77s with J51 and we ended the encounter with them at 1930 a couple miles off the south end of False Bay.