September 8 2020: A25s Compared to yesterday, today had a different pace. The A5s (possibly the A23s and A25s) briefly called and echolocated near Critical Point at 1:13am, and the next we heard of them was an hour later when they began rubbing at Strider Rubbing Beach. They only called and rubbed for a few moments, and then it was clear silence for the rest of the night. And our day followed just as so. The A25s were seen at 3:11pm heading South at Race Passage (east of Johnstone Strait and way past our range). Were both the A25s and A23s together at Strider Rubbing Beach earlier? Was it them? And where did the A23s go? What we do know for sure is that the A25s made their way east through Johnstone Strait today, and they could have very well done so from Strider Rubbing Beach. In other exciting news, Megan fixed our Cracroft Point hydrophone which is now back in action! All we are missing is our Kaizumi Rubbing Beach hydrophone to be up and running, which hopefully will be the case tomorrow! Paul and Helena returned from their trip to Alert Bay just in time to eat the Coho Quin had caught yesterday. This was his first catch, and something he had been working towards since December. After months of anticipation, we gathered together around the table, grateful for the salmon and all it gives to the coast. The rest of the evening and night were, wait for it… quiet as well! But the silence, boat noise and ocean sounds were accompanied by the waning moon casting a beautiful light over Blackney Pass, making it all a serene way to end the day. Gloria 08 Sep 2020 23:48:39 PDT September 7 2020: A23s, A25s, T055s, humpbacks, jetski Let me start by saying how incredibly beautiful tonight was! It didn’t seem like so for Megan, who only heard one call at around midnight and then... nothing. But as soon as 3:06am hit the clock, a humpback started calling near Flower Island. The humpback bounced between grunts, silence, and more calls, and then, just as it took a break, orcas began calling and echolocating at Strider Rubbing Beach! It was now 03:56am. The humpback started to call again, while the orcas were rubbing and making calls of their own. There is nothing quite like listening to orcas and a humpback simultaneously in the dark of night. The orcas moved to Main Rubbing Beach at 4:14am and stopped rubbing shortly after that. They soon stopped calling as well, and we wondered where in Johnstone Strait they decided to go. Only morning will tell! Two minutes later, the humpback began to call beautifully, there even were some squeaks! Eventually, the humpback started to move further into Blackfish Sound, the calls slowly fading away. It was now 5:22am. As the sun rose, Jen heard very faint calls on either our Critical Point or Strider Rubbing Beach hydrophone. But the calls stopped as quickly as they came, and the rest of the morning was silent. Noon is where things get interesting again! Andrew Jennings told us the A25s and A23s were in Johnstone Strait traveling west towards Alert Bay, just past the bottom of Stephenson’s reef. You might want to keep this in mind for later on in the day! At 12:27pm, a jet ski was in Blackney Pass… again. This time it was one jet ski, with two people on it. As they traveled north through the Pass, Quin and Pippa noticed a marine mammal splashing alongside the jet ski's bow. We're not sure what it was, but what happened afterward was unsettling. The jet ski sped up towards a humpback, which we later identified as Domino, and stopped less than 200 meters away from the whale. The jet ski exited the Pass at 12:34pm, but not for long. They were back at 1:15pm, hanging around the north of Blackney Pass in the same spot Pippa had seen the humpback during her 1pm scan. Surely enough, as soon as Domino surfaced, the jet ski moved right towards the whale. The jet ski waited for the humpback but lost patience quickly and headed into Blackfish Sound at 1:24pm. We've never had so many jet skis around, and it's very alarming to see this become a recurrent event. Not long after the incident, orcas began rubbing at Strider Rubbing Beach. The whales rubbed, called and whistled; they definitely sounded excited. Two whales were rubbing, and one was just offshore of the beach. From their calls, we were able to tell these were the A5s. Pippa saw two kayakers sitting offshore of Main Rubbing Beach looking towards Strider Rubbing Beach and notified Eagle Eye. By 1:56pm, the whales slowly headed west, breaching offshore of Strider Rubbing Beach. The whales turned around Critical Point, foraging, breaching, and tail slapping, and made it to the Robson Bight (Michael Bigg) Ecological Reserve by 2:36pm. At this point, our Kaizumi Rubbing Beach hydrophone stopped working, and it should be noted that our hydrophone Cracroft Point was out as well, leaving us with one big blind spot right where the whales were headed. Thankfully, Eagle Eye was able to be our eyes on the water as the whales kept heading west. It was the last day of their season, so it was sweet to rely on them to paint the picture of where the whales went next and who they were. Eight whales were traveling west: one female and baby, and two males, split evenly on each side of the Strait. It was now 3:21pm. A few minutes later, one male was in the lead just past Kaizumi Rubbing Beach, the female and baby following far behind and the rest of the whales foraging alongside the Vancouver Island shoreline, just west of the Western Boundary. Knowing the whales were A5s, this sounded like it could be the A23s and A25s. This didn’t add up with our earlier report of the A23s and A25s heading west towards Alert Bay. Eagle Eye then identified the lead male: it was A60, confirming these were the A23s and A25s. We were mind boggled, had the whales turned back east, and made it this far out in Johnstone Strait in only four hours? A few minutes later, we got our answer. Andrew followed up on his report: it was the T055s that were seen at 12pm near Stephenson’s reef. The whales that made their way from Strider Rubbing Beach to Kaizumi Rubbing Beach today were, in fact, the A23s and A25s. They kept heading west until eventually, we saw them on our Cracroft Point camera. They foraged there, taking deep dives, making splashes, and then porpoising out of the water. We just wish our hydrophone was working so we could have listened to them as well. Still, it was amazing to watch! We lost sight of them at 4:35pm and wondered if they turned back east or continued west. At 6:30pm, we heard from Andrew Jennings that the whales had continued west to the south side of Hanson Island and were now crossing the Strait from Big Bay towards Blinkhorn. So much more happened today it’s hard to fit it all in the summary! Megan, April and Meg headed out to Cracroft Point to see if changing the battery on the hydrophone would help our hydrophone situation. Unfortunately that wasn’t the issue. They also went to Parson Island and Sea Lion Rock to check the level of fuel for both hydrophones. We also had an interesting visitor on Hanson! Pippa was out on the lab deck at 3pm when she noticed a log-like shape moving offly fast. She took a closer look and ran back to Gloria and Quin in the lab: "there’s a black bear swimming towards us!" We all watched from the deck as the bear made its way to some rocks, shook off all the water, looked at us, yawned, and walked into the woods. We’ll all be walking with bear spray to our shifts tonight (not that we weren’t already doing so). But our day doesn’t end here; April could hear orcas faintly from our Critical Point hydrophone at 7:33pm. Was it the A25s and A23s that turned back east, or a new group of whales coming into Johnstone Strait from the east? Once again, we really wish our Cracroft Point and Kaizumi Rubbing Beach hydrophone were working so we'd get a better idea of where the whales were and who they were. Even though the calls stopped, Quin heard the blows of orcas in Blackney Pass at 10:12pm; they were traveling south. The sound of the orcas' blows passing by at night will never get old. They cleared the Pass at 10:15pm, and the rest of the night was quiet, making this passage through Blackney Pass the ending to a big eventful day. Gloria 08 Sep 2020 06:23:42 PDT