The A34s carried on their momentum straight into September 13th, with calls continuing on Strider just after midnight. Their voices shifted back and forth between Strider and Critical Point through the early hours, with the A25s briefly joining in conversation around 2:40am before fading from the mix. They didn’t stay away for too long, though, with A25 calls returning to Strider around 5:20am. The A62s and the rest of the A34s headed in the opposite direction and their calls now registered on Parson and later Kaizumi as they positioned closer to the entrance to Blackney Pass.
The A62s appeared in Blackney Pass heading north at 9am. For a while, they were floated sideways letting the current do much of the work for them. They eventually stopped for a quick forage closer to Swanson Island before clearing the pass into Blackfish Sound at 9:40am.
The rest of the A34s weren’t too far away. A34, A80, A55 and the A96s were approaching Bold Head around 10am. The A34s continued west into Queen Charlotte Strait.
Over in Johnstone Strait, the A25s were still making their way east along the Vancouver Island shore, with A85, A121 and A61 resting together at the surface.
Out west, the A34s spent the next few hours widely scattered between Queen Charlotte Strait and Blackfish Sound, slowly working their way east. By early afternoon, they were foraging east of Bold Head before taking Weynton Passage back into the Strait around 2pm. Their calls continued on and off throughout the afternoon.
At 4:30pm, the A34s appeared on the Cracroft Point camera, travelling east through the middle of the Strait. They stalled around the rip for a while to forage, sending calls bouncing between Kaizumi, Strider and Critical Point. Guardian and her baby made a surprise appearance on the camera as well, travelling east past the action.
After some shenanigans in the rip, the A34s eventually picked up their eastward travel again around 5:30pm, still hugging the Vancouver Island shoreline. One male was seen crossing over to join the others, accompanied by a burst of excited calls and echolocation, before the group slowly disappeared from the Cracroft Point camera towards Robson Bight around 6pm. Although they had disappeared from view, their voices stuck around for a few more hours, carrying across several stations until things fell quiet around 9:40pm. After such a vocal day, perhaps the A34s were giving their voices a rest and handing the hydrophones over to the humpbacks, whose sporadic – but beautiful – calls carried into the last hour of the day.
