EncDate:08/10/24 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:104

ObservBegin:12:48 PM

ObservEnd:02:00 PM

Vessel:KCB III

Staff:Dave Ellifrit, Michael Weiss

Pods:J

LocationDescr:Haro Strait

Start Latitude:48 33.96

Start Longitude:123 11.05

End Latitude:48 33.43

End Longitude:123 11.13

 

EncSummary:

The day started with some early morning reports of J pod coming down Swanson Channel. However, there was a lot of rain in the area, so we were going to let them get closer before we went out. Around 1230, a few spread out whales were visible from the house and we had a small weather window, so we mobilized and headed down to Snug Harbor. We left Snug at 1245 and saw whales a few minutes later in Andrews Bay just a little north of the Center. J pod was very spread out and heading south down Haro Strait. We had J53 on the inside of us and J42 was inshore of her. Offshore, we found J40 by herself and J19 was off to the northwest also by herself. These whales took us down to about the County Park before we backtracked looking for more whales. Off the north end of Andrews Bay, we found J39 chasing a salmon before he continued on to the south. Somewhere behind J39, we found J51 traveling by himself. At this point, it began raining hard again so it was getting difficult to see and cameras were in jeopardy. After J51, we saw J42 again and then we found J26 offshore traveling by himself. To the northwest of J26, we found our biggest group of the day with J44 and J57 traveling together. They seemed a bit social although they may have been foraging together. To the north of these two, we found J47 heading south just north of CWR. J35 was inshore of him. We ended the encounter at 1400 with J47 a little north of the Center. J pod stayed very spread out as they continued down Haro Strait.