Humpback Whales and Resident Orcas

Sunday, September 27th

This morning, the Orca Spirit with Captain Brad at the helm travelled south towards Constance Bank. Our sharp-eyed Captain spotted the blows of humpback whales.

Travelling south, we arrived on scene to find 3 humpback whales. We watched them surface just a short distance from our vessel and watched as each of the 3 humpback whales showed us their massive tail flukes. While we were watching the humpback whales, we received a report of orcas to the east. We travelled to San Juan Island where we spotted the large male L87 foraging, actually leaping at the surface in pursuit of salmon. L87 likes to travel with K-pod and sure enough we saw the large dorsal fin of Scoter (K25) who treated us to a thrilling pass and saw a spectacular breach from another large male off our bow. It was a spectacular wildlife adventure on the Salish Sea.

For our afternoon tour, we took the Pacific Explorer and headed east again to view the southern resident orcas.. This morning's group had headed north, so we travelled to the south end to view a large group of L-pod orcas. The whales were primarily foraging, looking for the chinook salmon that depend on. The whales were spread out over a wide area, but still gave us a great show. We had some great passes and our guests were once again thrilled by these most amazing of animals.