9/15-17/15 The L54 Group and Then A Surprise!

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Sept 15-17th
...officially it's the L54s, L-84, and L-88...for ease of writing I call them the L54 Group...
...Tuesday the 15th the L54 Group came up to the Lime Kiln lighthouse late in the day and stayed in the area for a couple hours before going back down island...for only five whales they were spread out over a couple miles...
...at the same time the rest of the whales who were in here were heading west, slowly, toward the open ocean...
...in my previous post I mentioned that sometimes you only needed to hear a certain sound to know it was Ino L-54, and on this evening she gave the opportunity of hearing her...
...it is very faint, short, sounds like a flute...you might have to have everything else in your surroundings quiet to even hear her...

...Wednesday the 16th appeared to be a No Orca day...that is until I got a phone call telling me of one lone whale...ah, but soon they saw another...off to see who it was...none other than the L54 Group!...about 6:30pm about two miles down island from the lighthouse...

...so on Thursday the 17th, when I learned of whales down island I already thought I knew who it was...none other than the L54 Group!...after getting a few looks, it was off to the Peregrine with Capt. Jim to go see them...

...then Keta and Coho surfaced together...mom had moved off and soon they followed her...

...by the afternoon trip, as we were watching the L54 Group, Capt. Jim said, "okay, I want all of you in the boat now."  I knew something good was up...but what?...I figured it was more whales coming in...and sure enough J, Ks, and Ls were coming back in!...there was a wide spread...we saw Cappuccino K-21 (who is one of the passenger's adopted whales - she was so excited to see him!), Opus K-16 and Sonata K-35...Sekiu K-22 and Tika K-33 no one else around them...J pod seemed to be in the largest grouping farther south...the L4s were traveling together...the L47s were way up ahead and made it to Lime Kiln before turning and going back down island with the rest of them...not sure who who exactly were present except a lot of whales!

 

...and then someone saw something...that was the surprise, it was a sea otter!!  

...yes! really!...for those who don't see them except very rarely (us), this was awesome...and he stayed by the boat for a long time...here's a video clip...I especially like all the 'people to the otter' talk and laughter...it was all quite fun!