9-12-13 Pick a Direction

Thursday, September 12th
...it was about 9:30 in the morning when some of the Residents began passing by the park...one, then another, and another...J pod, K pod and some L pod whales had gone by...

...they seemed to be doing a lot of foraging...not searching so much as much as actually nailing some food...they'd start to come back down...no, then back up...and on it went... ...it was now 12:30...some L pod whales turned back and didn't 'finish' passing the lighthouse until about 3pm, but by that time I was listening to them on the hydrophones instead of watching them...
...soon I was on a boat...we headed north to catch up to the leaders...but on the way we saw a group at Turn Pt....they were out in the middle and it seemed they hadn't picked a direction...

...it was Group B+ of J pod and the 3 members of the K Klik...

...we left them and headed up to Active Pass...there are times, often times, they will be very active as they approach, enter, and even exit the pass..today happened to be one of them...
...the approach...

...entering...

...the ethereal look with the mist from his blow...

....in the pass...

...approaching the exit...

...in the Strait of Georgia...

...they looked like they were heading toward the Fraser River...and since I am writing this a few days later, that's where they went and stayed there for two nights...

...now it was time to go back...it was our turn to pick a direction...thinking others might be coming up the same way we chose that, but we saw no other whales...
...once again it was an unusual combination of whales...not as unusual as it was on the 6th and 7th though...they are sure mixing themselves up...