Part 2 from Friday, May 15th
...after leaving the T65As we headed up to see Chainsaw T63, T65, and T65B and her offspring T65B1...
...and then, during one surfacing
there were more whales than we had thought...oh, the excitement set in...now we had to know just who else was here...
...we were now 'on a mission!'...when other whales just 'magically appear' it's totally exciting to me...I think the folks on the boat thought I was nuts...
...I figured I would have to wait until later to ID those others - there were three additional whales...
...then one surfaced coming toward us...I could see her lumps - It's T90!
...the whales were in travel mode today...this is the first time I've seen Chainsaw and the T90s this year...
T65, T65B and T65B1 were here too...and now there were 7 whales...
...T65B looks closer to T90 than she really is...they are very wide around the middle, so two whales, well just imagine what that span might be...
...that eye patch belongs to T65B1...
...and then I wondered if any more would show up...they didn't show up for us, but I learned from Dave Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research that another whale met up with them a few miles up ahead...read CWR's encounter post from today to find out just who it was...
...and Thanks to Mike and his 'lucky penny' we had whales today :) !!
Thursday, April 24th...yesterday we had barely an encounter with T63 Chainsaw and friends, but they headed off north and we stayed with a group going south...
...Chainsaw and friends changed their minds and came back south today...they were spotted south of Kelp Reef heading down...out on Maya's Westside Charters with Capt. Spencer at the helm for an afternoon trip, we joined the search for Chainsaw...
...we had been scanning but saw no whales...all of a sudden the capt. turned the boat and we knew he had gotten word over the radio...and off we went!
...Chainsaw has such a tall dorsal fin he can't be missed...
note: Someone asked a couple questions about T63. He is a big male and his dorsal fin is just big, just like many other adult males. He acquired those notches somewhere along the way which may add to 'his look'. Of course the angle of these images can add to 'the look' as well. Scroll down to look at images in this post to get a profile look...his fin is not out of proportion.
...T65 was closer to the Victoria shoreline and T65B and her offspring T65B1, were close to a mile in the offshore direction with T63 in the middle...
...
...they did come together as they continued heading west...
...
...the last two times I've seen T65B-1 there was a dark splotch on the left eye patch...today it was not there...may have been some skin slough that had been going on...Vancouver Island in the background...
...and with the building seas it was time to head for the harbor...we left them heading toward Race Rocks...
...yesterday we made it back 'safe, sound, and dry'.
Today we made it back to the harbor 'safe, sound, and wet!'
(a couple of us anyway) :)
