After their 9:30pm retreat back to Blackfish Sound on July 28th, the A54s used Weynton Pass to enter Johnstone Strait. Calls were only heard around 4:30am on the 29th and given that the first visual sighting was off Big Bay on Hanson Island at 6:50am they could not have been travelling very fast as was the case the night before.
The remote video camera mounted at Cracroft Point was only seeing still very distant whales to the west at 8:49am! They were still coming eastward and they had shifted over closer to the Vancouver Island shore. By 9:26am, they were east of Kaikash Creek but not yet at Izumi Rock. They were becoming quite vocal now.
By 10:43am, the Lab watched as they came in close to the Critical Point remote video camera at the eastern end of Robson Bight. Their travels along Vancouver Island and through the Ecological Reserve, next took them into Strider Rubbing Beach where they began a rub at 11:10am. It was a fairly vigorous rub with whistles and calls before ending at 11:22am. From there they continued to weave their way slowly along the shoreline, even visiting a less used beach east of the Reserve around 2pm before moving out of range. The rest of their day was spent east.
At Noon, a group of Bigg’s orca, the T090s, caught attention when travelling east of Bold Head tight to the Swanson Island shore in Blackfish Sound. They had little intention of continuing all the way into Blackney Pass and by 12:33pm they were reported heading northeast through White Beach Pass.
Around 10:30pm chatty Pacific White-sided dolphins were heard in Johnstone Strait. There may have been two very quick chuffs at Strider Rubbing Beach. The dolphin calls recurred off Robson Bight. The later timing of the A54s entering Blackney around 1am works perfectly to suggest that this group was westbound at the same time the dolphins were vocal in the Strait.
The day featured Guardian and her new baby passing through to the south and the sound of Pacific White-sided dolphins in Johnstone Strait around 10:30pm, a repeat sighting of a Minke Whale near White Beach Pass at 11:30am and the distinctive sound of a humpback bubble-net feeding in Blackfish Sound after 11pm.
