4-5-15 How Many Whales Are In San Juan Channel?

Sunday, April 5th
...it was Transients...there had been some in the area the last few days...who might these be?...
...I was at Cattle Pass, at the bottom end of San Juan Channel...the whales were slowly making their way down...I could see through my binoculars they appeared to be making a kill...
...but they were so far away...I took a few shots but didn't know if I even got a whale...wow - so far but fun just the same...it made me wonder if they were going after a porpoise from that 'high flying' action!

...they made it down but were still really far off...there appeared to me to be more than five, so it wasn't the T65As (they have five in their group) unless someone else was with them...
...and since they were still pretty far off I was just trying to get something!

...there were a few boats going along with the whales, the only boat that appeared to not be following the guidelines and laws was a private boat that was way too close...(I'm not sure why it is that some private boaters don't seem to realize when they are the only ones who are so very close and all the commercial boats are at the same distance off, that they don't get that just maybe they ought to be out there with the people who know how to motor around whales...


...one of the whale watching boats was moving along with the whales off to their left...a couple California sea lions surfaced between the boat and the whales...one of the sea lions looked at the whale and dove...

...the next moment a California sea lion leaped out of the water...seconds later two leaped out of the water in unison!

...it almost looked like that boat was about to have two more 'passengers'...
...but from shore they looked much closer to the boat than they were...
...had they been really close the passengers would have reacted to those two sea lions, but they didn't...
...the whales continued one their way and the sea lions, I assume, continued on their way...
...I found in my images later that there appeared to be a little orca in the group, who was way smaller than the other kids...there should have been four kids, which would have made it a total of six whales when adding the two moms...
...but it had seemed that there were more than 6 animals there, but they were so far away and not all surfacing at the same time...

...I learned later from the Center for Whale Research that yes, there was a new calf...they were on scene, so check their encounters page soon for more info on that new calf...