Sailing with Transient/Biggs orcas T46Bs near Salt Spring

June 1, 2019 – Today we had an incredibly perfect day for sailing when we left the dock. Sailed quickly up the channel with a close pass to Yellow Island as it tends to be one of our favorites for its wildflowers and photogenic madrone trees. Harbor seals near Jones Island were enjoying their last bit of time on the rocks before the tide comes in while a bald eagle watched the tide go by.

Enroute to Flattop Island an osprey flew by – a cool sighting as we don’t see them too often. Flattop Island was a paradise today. Juvenile bald eagles, harbor seals, a family of five river otters, black oystercatchers, and the best part was the nesting pigeon guillemots. Incredible vocals as the birds called to one another as we drifted nearby. So much life. We had to triple back to see the otters again and again as they played along the shore before running up the hillside and disappearing in the wildflowers.

With reports of orcas exiting Saanich Inlet we left the paradise of Flattop Island and hugged the beautiful coastline of Johns and Stuart Islands to up our chances of intercepting them. As we sailed wing on wing in Boundary Pass towards Turn Point Lighthouse we spotted numerous bald eagles and eagle nests. A great blue heron watched us sail by from the shore. For some reason we are seeing so few great blue herons this year.

A quick up close look at Lovers Leap before deciding to take our chances by pushing on to the west to see the orcas. We prepared dinner along the way and finally made it as the transient orca family known as the T46B’s was pushing offshore from Beaver Pt, Salt Spring Island. As we were waiting for the orcas to surface after their deep dive, we were totally surprised when T46B2 and T46B3 popped up from swimming under our boat. The rest of the group was about 350yards away. This orca family consists of two new calves, T46B6 and T46B1B, who has made the news lately for its whitish coloration. Even with our distant photos we could see the pale orca amongst the pod, a very rare condition and exciting orca to see. We didn’t have much time with the orcas as we were much further north than we planned to be so we said good bye and enjoyed our return trip via Pender Bluffs.

Using the short cut through Johns Pass we cut through the peaceful splendor of New Channel. Large groups of Canada geese and growing goslings stayed close to the shore of Johns Island. Black oystercatchers had a fun greeting ceremony on the rocks by the Cactus Islands which went on for several minutes as they bowed their heads to each other while calling out. The kelp beds were illuminated in the sunlight and the stillness in the water made perfect reflections. The bright yellow sun went down giving us a glorious sunset to admire and photograph. It doesn’t get any better than this.