45 min of orca marathon - Aug 21 Trip Report

Fog Fog go away, this rhyme is short, that’s all I have to say. 

While down island is cooking in a heat wave, it is causing a nice big fog bank to hang out up here on the north island.   Hoping it will end when this heat wave ends…but at least we don’t have to deal with 35+ celcius! 

The whales are certainly still out and about though.  Humpbacks have been displaying some great trap feeding (or trying to at least….one humpback has decided to blend trap feeding and lunge feeding and has created a new technique called chomping….not sure how effective it is, but it’s hilarious to watch), and the orca have been doing their rounds.  We have had “the brothers” (T060D and E) hanging around for the last few days.  They are some very large transient (biggs) orcas that are often seen around here in the summers.

We also had a magical afternoon on the 21st with reports of orca coming up johnstone strait past cracroft point.  We headed off down Hansen island in hopes of being able to see them on the shore there, and man did we ever get lucky.  As Joe (a 7 year old boy) exclaimed – “it is the best day of my life!”.  We came across the lead of the very spread out groups of orca and stopped the boat and shut down the engines.  The A23 matriline was swimming up the shoreline of Hansen, followed by A54, and then A50.  In total, we sat with engines off, by ourselves, floating in calm water for 45 minutes as orca just constantly swam past the boat (at a respectful distance of course).  It was so amazing watching and listening to them as they made their way up the coast.  They were spread out over the course of 4 NM all along the Hansen island shoreline.  The rest of the day was filled with humpbacks, and plenty of great bird activity.