Humpback Whales, Dall's Porpoise and Sealions! Sept 30th, 2009.

Kelping Humpback Whale

Bait Ball, you can see the small Bait fish glimmering in the water and the large fish feeding on them!

Here are images from the final tour of September and it was another very special trip, continuing the excellent success we had throughout September!

Our tour started with an exciting encounter with a group of Dall's Porpoise just off Victoria and these Dall's were being very playful. Next we encountered a very large bait ball and as we got closer we could see the bait fish ball being herded by larger fish, possibly Salmon.

Next we headed towards William Head where we encountered one of two Humpback Whales during our tour today. This Humpback was the mother of the second Humpback we would encounter later in our tour.

After watching this Humpback move lazily through the water (probably digesting a large amount of fish), we ventured to Race Rocks. Here we saw the increasingly large number of both Steller and California Sealions as well as several Harbor Seals. The stench and noise at Race Rocks is now beyond words!

We then headed back towards Victoria and on our way encountered another Humpback, this time a 3 year old who's Mother we had seen earlier. This particular Humpback Whale has been hanging out near Victoria for over 2 weeks now and is a very playful Humpback. Today we watched as it played with Bull Kelp very close to the boat (just over 100 yards away).

So ended another memorable day on the water and the perfect trip to end the month of September:)