CWR Encounter #56 | J, K, and L Pod

EncSummary: July 10th was the day we checked out of the McKay Bay Lodge and left Bamfield for home, but we wanted to find whales again before heading into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Both boats left the dock at 0620, putted out of the cove, and then headed west to the entrance of Barkley Sound. Once out of the sound, both boats took the same lines towards Swiftsure Bank as they had in the days before. We made a couple of coordinated hydrophone drops along the way, one not far from a feeding humpback. Like in the previous three years, the day we were to set out for home just happened to be the best working weather we had all trip. The ocean was calm, and there was no fog in the area. Both boats made it to the end of their lines without seeing or hearing anything. “KCB3” then made a run in towards the Clo-oose grounds while “Mike” did a loop to the south and east. “KCB3” made it all the way in towards Nitinat and was about to drop the hydrophone when Mark and Joe called and said they had SR calls on their hydrophone. They found whales heading west a little south of the area we had left twenty minutes before. We headed back out that direction while “Mike 1” got on K pod and then a group of Js and L12s to the southeast of them.

We found the K pod group after “Mike 1” left them, and our sequence of the encounter began at 0832 a little southeast of the shipping traffic convergence zone. K pod minus the K16s, K14, and K42 were in a tight group heading west. It was one of the best groups in the best lighting that we had the whole trip. K pod was being cooperative too, and we were able to get some good left sides on them. We had our best look yet at K47 and got some nice shots of her little open left saddle. There were at least three breaches by K36. Once we were satisfied with our photos on this group, we moved less than a quarter mile to the southwest to where the K16s were. They were also heading west and loosely spread before coming together briefly and then spreading out again. We had seen a lot of these two the day before, so we got some quick photos on them and then moved on to K14 and K42, who were just a little further to the south. These two were a bit more cooperative than the K16s, and both K14 and K42 gave us a really nice left-side ID shot. While we were with the two peripheral pairs, we could still see the main group of K pod to the north of us, and they were still being active. After leaving K14 and K42, we had to do a little searching before we found what was left of the mixed group of Js and L12s that “Mike 1” had had earlier, which had apparently dispersed. We found a little group that had J22, L77, L119, and L124 in it somewhere southeast of the K pod whales. We got good photos of the three adult females and a proof-of-presence shot of L124, who was being active on the periphery of the group but soon drifted off. After taking a scan and not seeing any other groups in the area, we decided to end the encounter at 0930 and start thinking about getting home. We did a little loop to the south but did not see any more killer whales. We stopped very briefly to look at a dead sub-adult humpback floating outside the entrance to the strait that “Mike 1” had seen earlier, south of the inbound traffic lane. The wind was supposed to pick up, and we were all ready to go home, so we began heading east. Mark and Joe checked back in towards the Clo-oose grounds again but found lots of feeding humpbacks instead of KWs. The seas in the Strait of Juan de Fuca did increase as we headed in, but we were riding with it, so it wasn’t too bad. It would have been really uncomfortable if we had had to work whales in the strait, so we kinda had our whale blinders on the way in. We called into customs while we were in Mitchell Bay and were on the dock in Snug Harbor by 1415, exhausted but feeling content after a successful expedition!