For much of the 27th, the orcas seemed content to let their voices do the talking.
The first faint calls reached Strider Rubbing Beach at 3:04am and were quickly identified as the A34s (-62s). They were in a chatty mood, their calls drifting in and out for hours as they lingered somewhere in the Johnstone Strait. By 7am, they were still at it, but a thick blanket of fog meant actually finding them was another matter.
At 7:19am, our team at the Cracroft Point platform could hear enough to know orcas were nearby, even if they couldn’t see them. Then, at the prime moment, they saw the A34s begin filing into Blackney Pass. Calls bounced between Cracroft Point and Parson Island before growing louder and decidedly more excited, while blows materialized through the fog. From the videos our team took at CP, we could pick out that there were at least two big fins, one to two small fins, and one juvenile, probably more. From the lab deck, Momoko heard the blows of about seven whales moving north through the Pass, accompanied by the occasional tail slap or breach somewhere in the mist.
One by one, their blows worked past the Lab, the Hump of Compton and Turtle Rock. By 7:54am the A34s had cleared Blackney Pass, though their calls lingered on Flower Island for another 40 minutes after they disappeared.
They resurfaced via reports later in the morning near Holford’s, spread over roughly two miles and resting as they worked southwest. However, this wasn’t the solidified plan it seems. By 1:32pm, they had turned around and were headed east through Queen Charlotte Strait, gathering together as they approached Bold Head, crossing towards Hanson Island and angling for Weynton Passage.
Through Weynton they went back into Johnstone Strait, only to turn west yet again. By 4pm their calls had returned to Strider Rubbing Beach as the family spread between Blinkhorn and Wastell. They took advantage of a downpour to slip through Weynton again and into Blackfish Sound. As the rain eased and visibility returned around 6:18pm, so did the A34s, emerging mostly along Swanson Island side while their calls carried across Flower Island.
By 7:33pm they had disappeared from view, westbound in Queen Charlotte Strait once again. A little game of Uno reverse, the A34s covered plenty of ground today…back and forth and back and forth. Luckily for us, they spent much of it chatting amongst themselves.
