9-11-15 A Glimpse of Granny in the Fog

Wednesday through Friday, September 9-11
...it's a good thing I met Collin from Texas the other day...seems I couldn't get to the right place to even see the whales!...definitely frustrating and funny too...

...into the picture comes this guy from Texas who just happened to be at the right place at a lot of the right times...I dubbed him 'my spotter and image taker' for a couple days...since I kept missing the whales and since he got pictures, I was able to verify some of who was where...thank you Collin for showing me your pictures!..it really helped fill in the blanks...

Wednesday, 9-9
...a foggy morning..I was able to see Granny J-2 in the lead as she foraged in the fog just north of Andrews Bay...

...it surprised me to see that my next images were of some of Nugget L-55's family group...I hadn't seen any others, but with the fog who knew...the whales started to go back down island so I went to the park...only to find that it was fogged in too...this was an exhausting attempt...so I just stayed in one place...
...as the fog was attempting to lift people started noticing this strange looking cloud formation...

...Blackberry passed by...

...soon after were Racer L-72, Fluke L-105...

...and with them, one other...

...after a while Sequim K-12, Rainshadow K-37, and Saturna K-43 came by...
...most of the whales had gone up island and continued into sunny skies!
...others had stayed south...finding out later in the day that the L12s, L54s, and I did get a glimpse of some of the J17s a bit farther down island...and a glimpse of Mega L-41...

...a humpback whale came by very close to shore and inside of Low Island, just off County Park...the humpbacks have been showing up, all over the place, every day lately...just about every morning for the last week or so there would be a humpback along the west side...and that was only the start of a day...

Thursday, 9-10
...it was almost a repeat of the day before except that it was very early with no fog and completely silent over the hydrophones and whales moving extremely slow...
...Collin had Solstice L-89 in one of his pictures...and then up at County Park he had Ino L-54, and her two offspring, along with Wave Walker L-88 and Nyssa L-84...all going up island at a snails pace for a good portion of the day...

...I learned later from Sue and Rod that other whales had passed just south of Lime Kiln at about 4:30 in the morning...ah...that would have been the J17s...and here I slept...seems that the whales were completely quiet too!

...a humpback whale came by very close to shore at Lime Kiln...

Friday, 9-11
...to avoid another day like those two previous...I set the alarm and get up earlier...of course that would about guarantee no whales at the park...
...instead there was a harbor seal with a salmon...

...and a humpback a couple miles offshore while we were waiting for the J17s to come down island...and then a male elephant seal surfaced and spent several minutes with his head straight up, then slipping back down under the surface...

...and by late in the day the J17 family group came back down island...

...Star J-46 doing a cartwheel...

...I wonder if the J17s are in a 'holding pattern' until the others return...guess I'll have to wait to see what they do next.