These passengers were visiting Victoria from Manchester, England, not far from where I lived before moving to Canada.
Today we encountered Jpod and a sub pod of Lpod, the L2's, near Heine Bank. The first Orcas we identified when we arrived on scene was J8 "Spieden" and J30 "Riptide" travelling West about 2-3 miles offshore and then we saw J1 "Ruffles" swimming nearby. J8 and J30 made numerous tailslaps and tailflukes before changing direction and heading North East. J1 also began to change direction and gradually did a full 180 degree turn and started heading back into shore.
After following J8, J30 and J1, we noticed a larger group of Orcas closer to shore and went for a closer look. When we got within 400 meters we realized we had nearly all of Jpod in close formation heading West. The group of Orcas were surfacing in unison and regularly, before making a deep dives for a few minutes. They changed direction on a couple of occasions during their deep dives. Amongst the members of Jpod we saw J28 "Polaris", J27 "Blackberry", J26 "Mike", his mother J16 "Slick" and the new Jpod calf born in May, J42. Other members identified included J19 "Shachi", J22 "Oreo", J38 "Cookie", J34 "Doublestuff", J17 "Princess Angeline" and J36 "Alki". A group of Lpod were mixed in with Jpod and there was another group of Orcas further off-shore that our sister boat Supercat, had been following. We caught up with this group at the end of our tour as we were leaving the scene at slow speed.
On our way home we stopped off at the Chain Islands to show our passengers the Harbor Seals and Cormorants, including the new Cormorant nest with the fledglings that are just a few weeks old.
After following J8, J30 and J1, we noticed a larger group of Orcas closer to shore and went for a closer look. When we got within 400 meters we realized we had nearly all of Jpod in close formation heading West. The group of Orcas were surfacing in unison and regularly, before making a deep dives for a few minutes. They changed direction on a couple of occasions during their deep dives. Amongst the members of Jpod we saw J28 "Polaris", J27 "Blackberry", J26 "Mike", his mother J16 "Slick" and the new Jpod calf born in May, J42. Other members identified included J19 "Shachi", J22 "Oreo", J38 "Cookie", J34 "Doublestuff", J17 "Princess Angeline" and J36 "Alki". A group of Lpod were mixed in with Jpod and there was another group of Orcas further off-shore that our sister boat Supercat, had been following. We caught up with this group at the end of our tour as we were leaving the scene at slow speed.
On our way home we stopped off at the Chain Islands to show our passengers the Harbor Seals and Cormorants, including the new Cormorant nest with the fledglings that are just a few weeks old.
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