6-29-13 The Rest Of The Day with L Pod

Saturday, June 29th...continued from previous post
...out on Maya's Westside Charters for a late afternoon trip...down island we go to see the whales...all of L Pod was here and if you read the prior post you'll see that the day began at about 4 a.m. when they woke me up over the hydrophones...

...when we arrived on scene off the south end of the island, it seemed there were a few groups...one group was in a resting pattern...an interesting mix of whales in this group...Spirit L-22, Skana L-79, and Solstice L-89 are a family; Nugget L-55 and some of her immediate family- 3 of her kids...(it seemed that Kasatka L-82 and Finn L-116 were off with Mega L-41, Ocean Sun L-25, and a few others in their own little group)...Surprise L-86 and Pooka L-106 were in this large group too...others were Marina L-47 and Mystic L-115, and little Mystic, this afternoon, was 'hanging out' with Solstice L-89 (after they 'woke up')...Moonlight L-83 and Midnight L-110 and rounding out that family would be Muncher L-91...also in this large group was Calypso L-94 and Cousteau L-113...
...then this group woke up...Mystic has been quite the active little guy lately!

...a strange looking moment...

...develops into this! Power - such Power!

...here's another strange looking image...
...what's wrong with it?

...that's Solstice's dorsal fin and he's 'right side up' and Mystic's tail and he's 'upside down'...too funny...
...not sure who this is who is about to slap the water...

...Skana L-79 - he's as big as that ship!

...they had split into various size groups with action going on just about anywhere you looked...and then they stopped...

...and pretty soon they slowly turned toward Cattle Pass (the lower entrance to San Juan Channel)...

...as this was unfolding we hear that Mega and several others had entered the Pass and were heading up the Channel (thanks Hobbes for that!)...I couldn't imagine the others would follow - how wrong I was...the boat is with whales going up the Channel...4 whales are heading into the Channel...and the whales in the foreground are going right to left!

...they too began to turn and funnel into the Pass...

...the whales who had been offshore by over a mile were also heading toward the Pass...Crewser L-92 and Lulu L-53 passed by us...

...Mystery L-85, Matia L-77, baby L-119, Racer L-72...and...I didn't get them all as they came in because the ones who had made it up to Shark Reef (thanks again Hobbes) turned and were coming back down the Channel, as these were coming up!

...it was quite a sight to see...wow, is all I can say...that's Goose Island (image above and below)...and that house is on San Juan Island...the whales were coming back down...

...those coming up just turned and blended in with those coming down...

..and they all went out together...difficult to see the groups in this image...

...some boy breached...but this time it wasn't Mystic...someone a bit older...

...a double tail slap...that's the second time this year I've seen that...

...as they came out of the Pass they were picking up speed, turned the corner and started heading up island...

...some I only saw as they were coming back out of the Pass - Nyssa L-84 and Ino L-54 and her kids were all together...I saw Wave Walker L-88 back with Mega L-41 as they were coming back south in the Pass...(he was with Mega most of the day today)...

I'm always interested in who's with who and today was quite the day to see some very interesting groupings...