10-16-13 They Were Here, But Were the Salmon?

Wednesday, October 16th
...J pod and Onyx L-87 were on their way inbound in the Strait of Juan de Fuca...
...for several days prior, the purse seiners have been out...I've watched them as often as possible and from what I saw it didn't look like they were having a lot of success - translation:  not much Chum salmon out there (but that's only based on the boats that I saw)...

...out on Maya's Westside Charters, we went out to meet the whales...they were heading toward Trial Island, and it looked like they were heading for the waters of Haro Strait...

...a plane saw the whales and took a quick look...

...a happy passenger!

...on their way...

...Rhasody J-32 has a wound...five teeth scrapes and then, contact!

...they were coming across, still several miles from Lime Kiln Lighthouse!

...they didn't make it to the lighthouse...

...but instead they stayed south and offshore...as I was watching J pod from shore I saw a humpback whale...the humpback was going in circles...in this image the humpback was circling out toward that point...and then back in...

...the killer whales were way off shore...spread out...one male was south and east, by himself, and another way off in another area...there was one group all lined up going against the current...they seemed to be heading south when I last saw them...
...then about four hours later I heard a few calls, quite faint, over the Lime Kiln hydrophones...I figured they were heading back out...but that's just a guess on my part...
 
...a little snippet of the whales from today...

...it's not the time of year to 'expect' to see them, so it's extra special when we do...