Yesterday afternoon we encountered part of J pod near South Pender Island. The whales were mostly in tight groups and were hanging out in the tide rips just off the end of the island. Tide rips are a great place for the orcas to hang out because many salmon tend to school up in the currents therefore making a great hunting spot. We watched the whales swim back and forth through the turbulent currents chasing down fish - better than a chase scene in a movie as far as I’m concerned! It would be so amazing to see what was going on under there. Every now and then, the whales would display a behavior that a few of us call “sharking” - when just the tip of their fin sticks out of the water as they chase a fish or swim at high speed. It’s really quite impressive. We also saw a few spyhops and cartwheels (when a whale explosively throws the back two thirds of it’s body out of the water including the tail - think of it as a backwards breach). One of the guests on my trip asked me, “why do they do cartwheels?” - it’s probably one of those questions that we will never know the true answer to, but here are some thoughts: Perhaps they do it just for fun (it looks like fun to me), maybe it’s for communication (it makes a pretty loud noise when six tons of whale crashes down on the surface of the water), or maybe it allows them to change direction quickly. I kind of like the last idea because when they are chasing fish, they have to be pretty agile and quick to catch up to their dinner. If a salmon makes an extreme direction change while being chased, wouldn’t it be easier for a whale to throw the latter 2/3rds of it’s body out of the water to also make the same quick direction change? Air has much less resistance than water - especially when you weigh six tons! I suppose we’ll never know for sure, but it’s a nice idea.

On the way back to Friday Harbor, we found some other great wildlife in Boundary Pass andoff the Cactus Islands including harbor porpoise, bald eagles, and harbor seals. It’s pupping season for the harbor seals and we saw a few little ones swimming around with their moms.

I didn’t catch any pictures from today, but I am posting a picture of J37 “Hy’Shqa” demonstrating a great cartwheel so you can get a better idea of what it looks like:

Yet another fantastic summer day!

~Katie