EncDate:30/01/24 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:10

ObservBegin:10:16 AM

ObservEnd:12:01 PM

Vessel:Mike 1

Staff:Mark Malleson

Other Observers:Brendon Bissonnette, George Hamilton

Pods:K

LocationDescr:South of Race Rocks-South of Sooke

Start Latitude:48 16.74

Start Longitude:123 31.83

End Latitude:48 16.70

End Longitude:123 46.77

 

EncSummary:

Mark's morning took an exciting turn at exactly 0900 when his good friend Gord in his "Crow's Nest" called to report a sighting of an active group of whales heading southwest south of Victoria's waterfront. Mark left for the harbour, briefly stopping to pick up Brendon en route, and together they met George at the boat. The team left the dock at 0940, charting a course towards Race Rocks in the hopes of intercepting the whales before they might enter the reserve.
At 1010 as they were ~ 1 nm north east of Great Race a series of fins caught their attention ~ .5 nm southwest of Race Rocks. As they approached they were highly suspicious that they were Residents by the big spread and behaviour; they could see several breaching in the distance and the closest individual was tail lobbing in a tide line.  
Brendon was able to confirm K pod after taking distant photos of the closest whales K16 and K22. This marked CWR's first encounter with K pod in 2024. K pod was last sighted heading west off Sheringham Point on December 19th 2023 (see 2023 Encounter #77). 
The whales were averaging 8 knots over the bottom but even with a moderate ebb current to help them along they appeared to be in a hurry. Charging ahead of the two females, also quickly on the move, was the eldest bull K26. The team approached and took a couple left side photos of him and then two other bulls, K35 and K42, surfaced in unison. Their pace quickened and soon all the whales in view began porpoising, reaching speeds up to 11 knots! 
Mark steered Mike 1 southward as George spotted more scattered whales, which included K12, K27, and K36.
After documenting these three, the team set their sights on locating the lead westernmost whales before backtracking for any they hadn’t seen. They glimpsed a distant large bull porpoising through the swell which turned out to be K33, accompanied by K43. K14 was located west of those two and once the team confirmed she was the lead animal, they turned east in search of the four unaccounted-for animals. Along the way, K22, now in the company of K27, passed Mike 1's starboard side, while K22's adult son, K33, breached a hundred metres to the southeast. Several minutes later, the team spotted siblings K38 and K45, who were busy socializing together. While observing these two, Brendon noticed a bull resembling K37 several hundred metres to the south, who was yet to be photographed. Just before the team could investigate, K16 and her son, K35, joined up with siblings K38 and K45, and all four gracefully passed by Mike 1's port side. Once clear, Mark steered the boat south to confirm K37 as the peripheral bull. 
The final animal to locate was K20. As the wind picked up, the team hoped to find her amongst the loose groups forming ahead. Fortunately, luck was on their side as they pushed ahead as the next female they found turned out to be none other than K20 herself! With that, all 15 members of K pod were accounted for and they ended the encounter at 1201.

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