9-27-17 Adjusting to Change

Wednesday, Sept 27th

This is long, but there's lots the whales had to 'say'...no pictures, just observations...

Sometimes it takes a while to adjust to loss and move ahead. That's sort of been my week.

...not only is there on-going concern for each and every member of the Southern Resident Community, at the forefront right now is Sonic's (J-52) family...and especially his mother, Alki J-36...

At the end of the day on the 26th the whales were slowly heading down from the Fraser River and the next morning...well, there were many options for them as to where they might be. 
...I had the car loaded with my gear and was ready to go, but I couldn't decide which place to begin...it was only 7:00am...weighing my options over the next several minutes I got a 'voice mail' from the whales!  One faint J pod call - it was 7:15 a.m. and I was out the door...
...made it to the park and got there in time to see whales more than a 1/2 mile from shore, going up...I could see a group who looked like the J16s and did see Nova J-51 and his mom, Eclipse J-41...
...behind them a ways were Racer L-72 and Fluke L-105...they were spread out...
...eventually I could see others and it looked like maybe they were coming up from Eastern Bank???...not sure, but just way offshore...
...this was the beginning of what would be a 4 hour encounter...puts a smile on your face, helping you to know that the whales will keep on going.  Of course they will, they have to and the humans are not making it easy for them in finding their food.

...some whales could be seen down island...some friends arrived and said they had seen some close to shore...so we waited...but the whales had another idea - food! - they were foraging a lot - good!
...some did come up...Lapis L-103, Moonlight L-83 and their two kids - Lazuli L-123 and Midnight L-110.   Though the seas were choppy and the whales were a good distance from shore watching Lazuli doing back breaches, spitting water as he breached, tail waves - well, he was quite the character...I actually got a belly shot of him.

An interesting combination of whales was Kasatka L-82, Suttles J-40, and Tsuchi J-31...gets me curious, especially because the drone folks from the Vancouver Aq. mentioned that Kasatka appears pregnant AND because both Suttles and Tsuchi have been seen on multiple occasions with pregnant moms, moms with a new baby, or a grieving mom who had just lost her baby...
...so is that Suttles' and Tsuchi's ..well, is that their assignment?  cause for pause on that one...

...over the encounter I did see at least one member of each of the family groups of the L26s, L4s (L55s and L86s), L72s, and L47s, but I didn't see either of the J22s...I'm sure they were out there...just not in my view...

...most of the males were not in the vicinity of where they could easily be seen from the lighthouse, or at least by my camera...of course except for Onyx L-87 - he was way offshore and didn't appear to be with any specific group...

...some of the whales went north, and eventually turned and came back down island...the last of the whales showed up off the point north from the lighthouse...they moved in along the edge of the cove...they didn't seem to be in a real tight group...
...then directly in front of the lighthouse they surfaced - as Shachi dove then Alki surfaced, Shachi and Scarlet surfaced in unison, as did Slick and Echo, etc...they were on the edge of the kelp!
...now this gave my heart pause...Shachi J-19, Alki J-36, Scarlet J-50, Slick J-16, Echo J-42 and also as who appeared to be 'escorts' - Racer L-72, Fluke L-105 and Onyx L-87...Slick's oldest, Mike J-26, was the very last to pass by and he was about a 1/2 mile offshore...
...seeing Shachi, the new leader, with Alki - grieving mother and her family (but not Mike J-26)...reminded me of Granny J-2 and how she tended to her clan members when one was in need...just one example was after Rhapsody J-32 died, Cookie J-38 spent time with Granny, something that was very uncommon.  And the first couple times he was tight to Granny's side.

...after they passed the lighthouse I took off and got down island about a mile...when the whales reached there, the tight group had already disbanded.
Seeing that and looking back on how they approached the lighthouse and how  they surfaced directly in front of the lighthouse, well, there was something more to it than just a group of whales passing by.
...as someone said, everything the whales do they do with intention.  I believe they know the presence of beings at the lighthouse, but what exactly we'll never know...
...did they want to let us know things were going to be okay?
...did Shachi want to demonstrate something she had learned from Granny?
I haven't a clue, but it sure touched my heart.

...later the whales did not come back up island, but instead were heading south and west...