For the afternoon tour for August 1st, our three boats went out to search for whales again and ran into the T46’s near Thetis Island. The T46’s consist of Wake (T46), Centeki (T122), Strider (T46D), Thor (T46E) and Loki (T46F). Wake, the matriarch of this pod, was born in 1966 making her 55 years old! She has 4 children that she travels with. Centeki is the oldest child of hers and she is 29 years old. Her three boys Strider, Thor and Loki are all 21, 18 and 9 years old respectively. These orcas were hunting when we were with them. We saw lots of tail slapping from their hunt when we were with them. When orcas hunt seal, they slap their tail on them to try to break their spine and to try to hold them under the water.

Wake (T46) is a very special whale. She is a part of the ‘Budd Inlet Six’. Back in 1976, she (and 5 other Transient orca) were part of the last live capture in Puget Sound’s Budd Inlet. The capture occurred only a few miles from Evergreen State College where a Whale conference largely regarding the cessation of live whale captures in Washington’s waters was happening that same day. This led to a huge public outcry and thankful she (Wake) was eventually released. She has since had many offspring, and has also become a great-grandmother!

After hanging put with the T46’s, we dropped by some seals and stellar sea lions. Near Entrance Island, we found a mystery humpback that breached off in the distance. We couldn’t find them again after the breach so we kept moving on. We ran into Zigzag and her calf not far off from here and hung out with them for a while. Humpback calves will stick with their mom for about a year. They drink about 150 gallons of milk a day from their mom and double in size within their first year! Humpback moms and calves will have a very strong bond for that first year of their life and will remain as close as possible to each other. They will often whisper to one another as they swim along to not alert any predators in the area.

Check out the photos our naturalists Rebeka, Brad and Cheyenne got below: