Ocean Magic Adventure / Transient Orcas / Sept 1

OK! so it was a bit bouncy during our travel in Sooke but we found them! Captain Anna said we traveled 52 nautical miles - almost to Sheringham Point when we finally caught up with the very fast moving transient killer whales thought to be T37a and family who is made up of females and younger orcas. The animals were traveling fast and against much wind and current. At times the animals stopped to check out what seemed to be prey sources under the water as they were circling around sometimes even spy hopping. One of the larger animals did a fully body lunge out of the water while chasing something, there was definitely some predation going on although we couldn't see what they were after. Passengers were treated to some awesome transient killer whale views, I have not seen these particular transients before so it was pretty exciting for me. With transients you just don't know what they are going to do! On our way home we stopped to look at Race Rocks where the many Stellar and California and some Elephant seals were hauled out. Fabulous trip! Please enjoy the video and photos below which nicely captures our experience of our trip.

Ocean Magic Wildlife Adventure Aug 4 3:30pm

Hello all. Well it's been a while since I have been out on the water as I was away in Mexico. Finally, I was able to get out on the boat and see some of the orcas! On the 3:30 Ocean Magic trip we observed members of Lpod in Juan de Fuca / Haro Straits - where the two converge. Earlier that day they had been spread apart foraging off San Juan Island. We heard that all 3 pods were together but we spent our time watching some of Lpod. It's always easy for us to first ID the large males - L41 and L74 who were busy chasing Salmon impressing our passengers. We also observed mother and calf pairs (need still to ID) breaching and porpoising about. There was no shortage of orca activity out there; speed porpoising, tail slapping, spy hopping and many breaches in all directions. As the animals were spread far apart, it was difficult to catch all the breaches as some of them were overlapping far and close by. I did manage to get some images of it for your viewing pleasure. On the way home we stopped to look at the harbour seals hauled out on the rocks of the Trial Island lighthouse. Thanks to the stellar all girl crew today; Captain Anna, Naturalist Mika, Naturalist Liz and Naturalist McKyla. Please enjoy the photos and video in the post.

Please note for your viewing variety, photos are generally shot with a 400 mm telephoto lens and the video is usually shot in wider angle and shows a different perspective.

Also, keep your eye on the Prince of Whales website, the new site is almost complete!. Should be live in the next 2 weeks. It's an exciting change!