EncDate:10/05/23 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:20

ObservBegin:04:45 PM

ObservEnd:07:04 PM

Vessel:Orcinus

Staff:Dave Ellifrit

Other Observers:Katie Jones

Pods:Transients

LocationDescr:San Juan Channel and Middle Channel

Start Latitude:48 30.38

Start Longitude:122 56.72

End Latitude:48 25.78

End Longitude:122 56.80

 

EncSummary:

Dave and Katie had been receiving reports for most of the day of a large number of Bigg’s killer whales that had been found north of Saturna Island and were making their way down through the San Juan Islands. After finishing with a presentation in town, Katie and Dave met at Snug Harbor and left in the boat at 1603. Since the whales were already passing Friday Harbor and had a good chance of heading south towards Cattle Point, we headed down the west side of San Juan Island. We then headed through Cattle Pass and headed north up San Juan Channel. We arrived on scene from the south and the encounter began at 1645 on the Lopez Island side of the channel off Fisherman Bay.

T87 was in the lead by himself as he traveled south parallel to the Lopez shoreline. About a hundred yards behind him was a large tight group that included all of the T36As and T124As. T63 and T65 were loosely spread out and following the T36As and T124As by about fifty yards. T87 moved over to the Lopez shoreline and T65 joined him a little later. Around 1705, after we had dropped back a little to get photos of T63, the T36As and T124As began porpoising south. They stalled out down toward the bottom of Griffin Bay far ahead of us. After we got shots of T63, we had planned to wait until the whales were out of Cattle Pass before we approached for more photos. However, the whales were fighting the flood and took quite a while to go anywhere once they were north of the pass. A large chunk of the T36As and/or the T124As milled a bit and began heading back north after a long dive. We went to see who that group was when they went on another extremely long, long dive. We waited around for almost ten minutes when a whale finally surfaced to the southwest of us. However, this whale’s fin was too big to be part of the group we had been waiting for. It turned out to be T124C who was following the others. T124C had been reported to have been present earlier in the day. T124C headed southeast but was only coming up once every half minute or more so he was hard to pace for ID photos. The group of females and kids who had been heading north finally surfaced again to the south of us closer to Cape San Juan. They continued on southeast towards Whale Rock. T63 and T65 appeared to the south of us, between the T36As/T124As group and us. These two then briefly headed back north towards T124C and T87, who had also recently reappeared. These four then all turned back south and headed for the pass as a group, heading down the east side of Goose Island.

By 1815, the T36As and T124As had exited Cattle Pass and were heading east-southeast off Long Island. This group was still tight together and we were able to get some nice right sides on them before leaving them around 1840 still heading east-southeast about a mile south of Long Island. The T63, T65, T87, and T124C group had spread out a little and taken a more south-southwest direction out of Cattle Pass and were briefly heading for the Salmon Bank buoy. By the time we headed over to them, they had reformed into a foursome and also headed east-southeast. T63, T65, T87, and T124C were looking quite impressive in the evening light as they lined up abreast and were steaming easterly in lumpy tidal waters. We ended the encounter with them at 1904 about 2 miles southwest of Long Island.