We skipped a day’s reporting mainly because the A42s went well out of our range and into Georgia Strait. Yesterday, Wayne Wright reported that they were approaching the rubbing beach on Hernando I. at 1:24pm. Later that afternoon Jenn clocked them at 4:18pm off Mace Point on Savary Island. They were still southbound. Today they were found off Mystery Reef around 1pm. This is southeast of Savary Island. By the afternoon, just before 5pm, they had shifted closer to Mitlenatch Island. That put them right in the “middle” of Georgia Strait and a little closer to Campbell River. Are they coming back? Hard to say. There were some poignant discussions about the absence of Surf (A66) Holly’s oldest son who disappeared after being seen near Mace Point earlier this winter.
Thanks to Suzie for relaying all these reports to us.
Meanwhile, as we waited for the reports to come in about the whereabouts of the A42s, we went through the usual daily rhythms of cool mists in the mornings, sunshine by the afternoon, chores and tasks tackled and completed, and finally lovely meals made by Tills.
Just as we were preparing to sit down to tonight’s feast, Agathe spotted some distant orcas off the northern shore of Cracroft Island at 7:03pm. The small group of perhaps four were very distant but we could tell that they were fully engaged in a hunt. As we watched, Jim Borrowman in Telegraph Cove texted at 7:33pm that there were calls on his hydrophone system and that T087 and T124C had been identified by Scotty on the Prince of Whales whale watching boat. A very short while later, at 7:41pm we too heard calls in Johnstone Strait not long before Scotty spotted yet another small group off Blinkhorn heading west – most likely the whales we were all listening to. This group went towards those two males that Jim saw off Telegraph and before long these Bigg’s orcas all turned back to the east. Our group, meanwhile, had disappeared from view at 7:52pm as they headed toward Johnstone Strait. By 8:08pm they emerge from the entrance to Blackney Pass and start to move east. We followed them for a while on the Cracroft Point remote camera. Possibly we also saw some of the others who had been further west in the Strait, very distant and impossible to follow as they neared the Sophia Island mid strait by 8:26pm. The vocals long since ceased and now so too the day which is quickly surrendering to the night.
