March 19th - All the way up Saanich Inlet with the T090s and T124As
An early morning report had us out the harbour and heading south, bee lining for the Saanich Inlet. As we passed through Dodd Narrows the Stellar Sea lions were out fishing, diving, porpoising and leaping around, snacking on all the tasty fish in the narrows. After getting into the gulf islands Cascadia traveled south all the way into the Saanich inlet almost to the very end, where we finally caught up with the whales that had been reported.
About 10 Orcas were traveling around, looking for a tasty meal as we settled in to watch them. We were able to ID the T90’s and T124A’s, a small T-party, playing in the inlet today.
These 2 pods are both pods we see a few times a year, but not too often.
Eagle, T90, travels with her family of 3, Piglet (T90B, 16 years old), Tigger (T90C, 12 years old), and Kanga (T90D, 5 years old).
Kittiwake is the other Matriarch, T124A, who travels with her 3 children and 2 grandchildren. Kittiwake travels with her daughter Sabio (T124A4 who is 12 years old) who had her first calf last year, T124A4A, Kasuun (T124A6, 6 years old) and T124A7 who as born last year.
We spent a while watching these whales playing in the waves and enjoying each others company before we turned to head north back to home. We got to see a large gathering of juvenile eagles on the water. With the herring spawn ending there are still plenty of birds and we’ve seen several very large gatherings of bald eagles of the last few weeks. Juvenile bald eagles are often mistaken for Golden eagles, as they take 5 years to get their adult colors, but can reach adult sized much sooner. It can be pretty misleading but Golden eagles are a far rarer sight in our waters.
After experiencing some mechanical issues we had to take it slow on the journey back home, getting to drink in the scenery even better, since usually we travel at speeds around 30 knots. This slower pace was fun for a time, but soon we managed to switch boats to Kula our covered vessel where we finished out the rest of our tour. Both the guests and the staff found this exciting since a boat switch hardly ever happens.
We made a final stop at Harmac to see the sleepy California Sea Lions relaxing on the log booms and then headed back to the Nanaimo harbour. It was an exciting trip in more ways than one. During all this our naturalist onboard, Rebecca Stirling, got some amazing photos that you can view below!
Some playful sealions in the waters south of Dodd Narrows.
On the hunt!
Some mergansers joining in on the fish feast!
A juvenile bald eagle keeping an eye on us during the tour.
WOW! That’s a lot of whales!
Here is the newest member of the T124A family travelling with their pod!
Direction change!
Close encounter of the orca kind! Its hard to tell who is who from this angle.
Here is Piglet (left) with his mom Eagle (right).
Piglet again with his huge dorsal fin!
It’s hard not to get enthralled by the towering dorsal fins of our male transient orca.
California sea lion.
A unimpressed sea lion watching our whale watchers.