Superpod, Gray Whale and Humpback Whale!! July 25th 2007.

Mother Duck & Ducklings near Fishermans Wharf, so cute!
Mt. Olympus
Mt. Baker

If you look closley at this picture you can see this Orca below the surface of the water.
Cartwheel

This young member of Lpod was being particularly playful with several tailslaps (including inverted tailslaps), breaches and cartwheels observed.

Lpod Breach

Youngster Breaching

Humpback Whale

Gray Whale

What a day to be on the water!!! In the morning there was thick fog out west and on the shoreline over near the Olympic Peninsula, which made it difficult to see any animals in those areas. However, our morning trip did see yet another Humpback Whale feeding not far from Heine Bank.

In the afternoon we set out towards Constance Bank after reports of another Humpback Whale south of that location. Sure enough we did find the Humpback and enjoyed watching it for several minutes. I kept looking over towards the thick fog bank at Race Rocks wondering if our Orca Pods maybe travelling towards us and sure enough we soon got word that indeed Orcas had been spotted near Race Rocks heading East, woohoo!!!!! We saw several members of Lpod including L73 "Flash", a male born in 1985, and his mother L5 "Tanya" who was born around 1963/64. One youngster was in a particularly playful mood and breached several times.

So we set off and caught up with members of Lpod near Pedder Bay, but thought we had passed Whales on the way. When we arrived on seen we heard confirmation that we had Lpod nearby but could also see other Orcas way off in the distance. Scotty (our Cpt) and I wondered if in fact all three pods were returning having spent a couple of days out West. Later it was confirmed that indeed all three of our Southern Resdient Pods (J,K & Lpod), a total of almost 90 Orcas, had indeed returned!

As if that was not enough, on the way back to Victoria Harbor we heard our sister vessel "Supercat" had found a Gray Whale. So we headed over in that direction and sure enough we saw the Gray and that made a total of three different species of Cetacean that our passengers were incredibly fortunate to see in just one trip!!!