A neat moment

Taken on Sept 7/05 while i was working on another boat, thought i would share this photo here.

J,K,L pods / San Juan Island

This morning we headed to beautiful San Juan Island where reports of all 3 pods were spread apart milling. When we arrived we found the L12's feeding and then caught up with a large group of k's and l's who were very close to the shoreline at Lime Kiln Park. Mixed into this spread open group was J19 / Speiden and her calf J41. It's been a long time since I have seen such a large group travel together like that. We positioned outside of the reserve, shut down and waited. In small groupings the large body of mainly k's and l's passed us. We managed to see a variety of behaviors; breaching, high speed hunting, cart wheels, spyhops, tail slapping, pec slapping and more. Today the whales were spread apart from False Bay to kellett bluff. It was flat calm and sunny, yet another glorious trip today.

Jpod / San Juan Island

It's been over a week since i've seen the southern residents. A lovely day on the water today, flat calm, open blue skies - perfect for venturing over to San Juan Island to see the orcas. We arrived to find most of the population (JKL pods) spread wide for miles milling in all directions. Although there were all 3 pods present in the area, we focused on a couple of Jpod individuals. J11 / Blossom and her offspring J39 were in pursuit of salmon, in fact, we saw her with the tail end of salmon in her mouth while several others tagged behind her as if to get a peice of fish. Aside from milling, we caught a few breaches from an adult female and calf. J39 was off feeding by itself for a while, and speed porpoised as to catch up with the others in the area. Once again, a great day out there on the water.

Heard there might be a new J and L pod baby in the last few days, how exciting! We should have confirmation soon on this.

L98 / Luna 2005

(Luna porpoises behind the Uchuck then turns back to Mooyah Bay where he spends most of his time)