3-31-16 A West Side Day With Orcas

Thursday, March 31st
...if you want whales on the west side in the morning, make a dentist appt....works every time!
...I located the whales when they had already gone down island and were off South Beach...
...the same two family groups who have been in here for several days...
...what would they do next?
...similar to what they have been doing, only in a different location, meandering you might call it...going one direction for a while, then back to where they had just come from, and then back down island again...
...during one of their up island 'trips' as they were moving along very slowly, Tahlequah J-35 began logging and she did so for two minutes...sometimes one of the whales will log for a bit, but two minutes is a bit more than the average from what I have seen...the whales continued up island for a few more minutes and turned and went back down...as they did one of the whales began logging, but this time you could only see the melon, not even a bit of an eye patch...not enough information for an ID...it could have been Tahlequah or someone else...
...I asked David of All Aboard Sailing...they too got some images of the logging events, but nothing else conclusive...

...mid afternoon the whales grouped up and again changed direction and were coming back up island...they were moving so slowly...

 ...so it's not summer yet...this is their home whenever they want to be here...

...you'd laugh if you watched me run back and forth trying to get pictures of the whales in the trees!

...this time the whales were 'definitely' coming up island...they were less than a mile from Lime Kiln...

...I told some folks in the parking lot that whales were heading this way and they might make it to the park...well, Liz, from South Carolina had just gotten off the ferry, at 4pm no less!...and came out to the park...the whales could only be seen with binoculars...I handed her mine...she located the whales surfacing near the ship...and then they played in the freighter wake...and she saw it all through the binos :)

...thanks Liz!  You made the day with your enthusiasm...
...she told me about a place near Charleston, South Carolina, where dolphins strand feed...I had to look it up...'No words ' absolutely amazing!  

Here's a YouTube Video of dolphins strand feeding.