What an amazing day with the fog bank clearing within minutes of our departure from Alder Bay revealing a beautiful calm, clear and sunny Johnstone Strait! We encountered the A30 matriline as they headed to the west near the Baron Reefs and close to Cracroft Point. It was a surprise to see them as we had thought they were headed east as were the I15’s who were parrallel to them but across on the Vancouver Island shoreline, making their way towards the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. There were numerous pacific white-sided dolphins with the I15’s, a possible reason for the A30’s to move to the west and away from the pesky dolphins! The A30’s were strikingly beautiful today, perhaps because of the brightness of the day and the way in which they organized themselves, effortlessly it seemed with A30 and A38 close together with A39 well in the lead foraging up towards Hanson Island, A50 and A54 not far behind with their off-spring and then their orchestrated turn into Blakney Passage towards the end of the flood current and making way, far across Blackfish Sound A50 & A54 and calves on the Swanson Island shoreline with A30 travelling mid-Strait between her sons A38 & A39, a profound and beautiful image they formed, the three of them together. At this point we left the A30’s and began heading for home via several humpback whale sightings ahead of us, three of them nearby and one a distance away, followed by some wonderful viewing of hauled out stellar sea lions and kelp forests glistening in the sunlight, harbour seals and bald eagles; all of it amazing and unforgettable. Other sightings included: dall’s porpoises, rhinoceros auklets, common murre, red-necked phalaropes++, california, mew and glaucous-winged gulls, bald eagles, great blue herons and belted kingfishers.