09/25/17- M/V Kestrel- 2PM
Today was a magical day out on the water, our guests were spoiled! We headed South towards the Strait of Juan de Fuca and stopped to see some Steller’s Sea lions along the way. Although these animals are amazing to see in action they don’t smell too great.
We continued on and headed towards the city of Victoria through the glassy waters of the strait. We made it just South of Race Rocks and spotted a humpback whale. This humpback whale was a brit precarious. The whale was feeding in the area, so that usually creates more eradicate and unpredictable surfacing’s, making it harder for us to get in good viewing position. We decided to leave that humpback to its feeding and head over to race rocks to look at the various pinnipeds that reside there. Race rocks is home to harbor seals, Steller’s sea lions, California sea lions. We heard and saw on three hanging around the rocks and getting into a few scuffles.
We decided to move on from race rocks and head towards the reports of Bigg’s killer whales just a little East of where we were located. We spotted the the T109’s prey sharing a harbor seal they had killed just moments before we got there. We were lucky enough to hang out with these whales alone for about 30 minutes. We pulled up to a respectful viewing distance and then shut our motors off. Amazingly, the whales then actively swam towards us and circled around our boat for about 20 minutes. We were lucky enough to see some blood and guts from their prey as well. It was truly amazing to watch these animals swim underneath us while turning onto their sides to get a look at our boat.
Today will go down as one of the best days I’ve had on the water here in the Salish Sea.
Naturalist, Rachel