August 2, 2017 – Smokey haze in the air from BC’s forest fires. We set out on a mission to find orcas. We even made kelp horn trumpets to call them over to us – it called a seal immediately over who wasn’t at all impressed with the idea. More bald eagles that you can keep track of on Flattop Island and just as many in New Channel. Drifting through life like the moon jellies. As we rounded the corner sailing past Battleship Island and Kellett Bluff we hear that the transient orcas known as T18 and T19’s take an unusual route through Roche Harbor via Mosquito Pass. We arrived on scene to see them hunting inside the harbor. Crossing over to Spieden towards Green Pt, back to Flattop and onto Gull Rock scaring seals with many close passes in shallow waters.
Fall colors and a bald eagle perched on Flattop Island
Harbor seals resting
Harbor seal resting
Harbor seal passing close by after Capt David played the kelp horn
Bald eagle
Bald eagle
Harbor seal pup sitting all alone
Bald eagle fly by
Trees in New Channel
Spieden Island / Sentinel Island
Bald eagle pair sitting under their nest – Battleship Island
Harbor seals – Battleship Island
Kellett Bluff, Henry Island
Buck standing on the shoreline at Kellett Bluff – He will have to keep swimming to a proper place
Posey Island
T18 and T19B leaving Roche Harbor
T18 and T19B
T19 and T18 – according to CWR T18 is T19’s probable mother
T19, T19B and T18
T19B with younger brother T19C
T19B headed for Spieden Island
Battleship Island in strange light due to wildfires in BC
Orca spy peep in the kelp
T18 in fiery skies from BC wildfires
T19
T19C
Harbor seal mom and pup and the Flattop forest
T18 hunting in the bay – Flattop Island
T19B – born 1995
T18 and male orca, T19B, passing Flattop Island
T19B passing seals on high alert – Flattop Island
T19B aka Mr Floppy Fin
T18 passing seals on Flattop Island – A National Wildlife Refuge
T19B passing seals on Flattop Island
T18 and T19B hunting near Flattop Island
T19C
Male transient orca T19C born 2001
Strange sunset during BC wild fires