Afternoon encounter with the L12's & L22's! June 17th, 2009.

This afternoon we returned to the west side of San Juan Island where the L 12's and L22's were still hanging around. As we arrived on scene we could see several Orcas were actively fishing for Salmon. We watched in awe as these supreme predators hunted and caught their prey. In particular we had one wonderful example of the speed and agility of these apex predators as we watched L79"Skana" hunt for Salmon. When hunting Orcas can reach speeds in short burst of over 20knts!

As the wind picked up during the afternoon we also witnessed a number of the Orcas playing in the 2-3 foot waves. For most of the trip the Orcas were spread out but we then saw one of the males make a large tail slap and shortly after he was joined by three other Orcas and we witnessed a lot of fishing. Obviously this tail slap was to tell the others that he had found a large number of Salmon and to come on over!