T10's and T26's
Photo by Dave Ellifrit

Encounter # 59 • December 23 • Transients


Platform: Orca
Observer: Ken Balcomb, Dave Ellifrit, Jared Towers and Mark Malleson

In the early morning hours of 23 December 2009, Ken Balcomb spotted a group of whales off the Victoria Harbor entrance that were behaving very transient-like, but were too distant to identify individually. He called Mark Malleson and Jared Towers and dispatched them in r/v "Orca" from Oak Bay to bring the boat around and identify the whales, which they did by the time the whales reached Race Rocks and continued to the west. Mark and Jared returned "Orca" to Victoria Harbor, where Ken and Dave Ellifrit met them with camera equipment for photo-documentation. Finally, at 1300 in the afternoon Ken and Dave caught up with the whales and Dave took this beautiful shot of the T10's and T26's heading west in the Strait of Juan de Fuca off Sooke, British Columbia.

These photos were taken under MMPA permit #532-1822and/or DFO license #2006-08/SARA-34.