10-1-14 Marathon Day of Whales Along the West Side

Wednesday, October 1st
...when I said at the end of yesterday's post that tomorrow could be interesting...well, that was an understatement!
...it began with whales coming up island..I can still only guess that it was Group A Minus (minus the J16s) who had come down last night at about 8pm...but it sure fits well... 
...today Granny J-2, Onyx L-87, Shachi J-19 and Eclipse J-41 were the first whales to pass by...even those four were well spread out...
...quite a bit later a group came up...I was expecting the J14s...okay, they were there AND with them were the J11s...now that's interesting!
...Cappuccino K-21 came up island and I could see others, but I left to go out on Maya's Westside Charters...
I was curious if the J11s were still with the J14s...and yes they were...and so were some Lags!...aka - Pacific white sided dolphins...there weren't a lot, but it only takes a few...

...in shore at Kellett Bluff...then off shore south of Turn Pt....

...then up ahead of Onyx one of the Lags (the first three letters of their scientific name are: lag...that's why they are referred to as lags (only one syllable as opposed to 8 syllables)...could be called verbal shorthand...

...and in between those two places the J14s (Samish J-14, Hy'Shqa J-37 and her offspring Tilem Inges J-49, Suttles J-40, and Se-Yi Chn J-45) and the J11s (Blackberry J-27, Tsuchi J-31, and Mako J-39) at one point it looked like the J11s might turn and go back down island...but when we had left them they were still going north...

...back in and off the boat and to the park to see if I could find any of the J11s...nope...so far it didn't look like they had come back down...

...the K16s and Cappuccino K-21, the J16s and the J17s I saw going back down island...and there were others (the Cookies) ahead of them...

...and then the J17s turned around and came up island and past the park...

...and they continued to move up but they were foraging, socializing or whatever they wanted to do...I watched them in the distance until I got too cold in that wind and it was getting too dark...and then from home I continued to hear them over the Lime Kiln hydrophones until after 9:00 pm.!...it was a great day to listen in to the hydrophones the whales were on them just about all day long...and I wouldn't be surprised if they were on there all night long!

...now did Granny's group and the J11s continue north?...will have to wait and see who is where tomorrow!...They may actually lead more complicated lives than some humans might think!...

...added later:  at 00:05 on October 2nd calls began coming over the Lime Kiln hydrophones...J pod calls...they got to be quite loud...I heard some K pod calls as well...since there were J and K whales down island still at 9:00 pm it could be them...but then the calls got like crazy...okay, I think Granny and the rest of them came back down and they were getting together...but since I was blinded by the darkness and had only one piece of information...once again wait until daylight...