7-12-15 They Can't Get Much Closer Than That!

Sunday, July 12th
...J Pod Group A Minus and the K14s had been north last evening...no other whales were seen in the area yesterday...
...all of a sudden a group of whales surprised everyone by showing up passing the lighthouse this morning, going up island!...not being at the lighthouse when that occurred I was able to see them a bit farther up island...Skagit K-13 was in the lead, some of the K12s were there and some L pod whales of the L4s and Marina L-47's family...but they were distant from shore where I was viewing them...
...they met up with Group A and the K14s and they all came down island...this time I was ready...
...Muncher L-91 was in the lead, with Moonlight L-83 and Midnight L-110 close behind her...they were traveling at a 'normal pace'...we could see a few whales porpoising...and behind them...

...oh, my...there were more...and behind this group of six were even more!

..."uh-oh"...I thought...I was helping out one of the researcher's interns...they need to be in certain places to be able to view the entire study area...to the north a half mile and to the south a half mile - in other words: when the first whale enters the study and and when the last whale departs the study area.  Due to the number of people the only place left where that view could be obtained was all the way down on the rocks.

...so my uh-oh was due to the fact that if the whales continued to porpoise, the only way I could get ID shots was if they surfaced right in front of us...

 

...there ended up being 20 or more who passed by right in front of us...
 ...and if Eclipse J-41 had surfaced directly in front of us we would not have seen baby J-51!

...amazing!

...I later learned they met up with many others who were down island and spent the rest of the day down that way...some began to come up island in the evening...a few made it almost to the park but offshore...a few calls were heard over the Lime Kiln hydrophones...and they soon turned and headed back down island...