23 June Cetacealab reports:

On the day of the summer solstice ,the A30s and Rs were reported in Douglas Channel, travelling south just north of the village of Hartley Bay late in the afternoon. The large group of whales must have split up somewhere in Wright Sound later that evening because our hydrophones never did pick up any R-Clan calls later during the evening, instead we listened to excited A30s on the top end of Whale Channel. It was just past midnight, the full moon rising over Princess Royal Island, as suddenly with a burst of calls the A36s announced themselves on our hydrophone on Borde Island while the A30s were still audible faintly also. We think that the A36s decided not to meet the A30s in Whale Channel, instead we think they turned around and headed back to Caamano Sound because early in the morning of June 22nd (5:30am) we spotted them approaching Whale Channel, and this time they travelled north. At the very same time, a couple of hundred miles further south, Orcalab starts to listen to the A12s, A4s and A5s in Blackfish Sound, which marks the start for their Orca season. It will mark the first time that we roughly know the location of all the A-Pod whales of the northern resident community on the same day along the BC coast. As the A36s continued to travel slowly against the tide north towards Douglas Channel, the wherabouts of the R's remains a mystery for us.

Cetecealab reports
A Dream came trough

The other day we were talking about how wonderful it would be to listen to R-Clan Orcas on our hydrophones, since we never had the chance to do so in the last three years of us being here. That dream came suddenly true yesterday afternoon. In the late morning we overheard a VHF conversation about a large group of Orcas heading north towards Whale Channel. We went out to see them and saw different groups of whales just "running" towards the North. They had to deal with a lot of sport fishing boats at the entrance to Whale Channel, but soon after they entered, there were no more "aluminum mosquitos" around them. We dropped the hydrophone over the side of our boat and then the excitement began. We were listening to a R-Clan Orca concert and within the Rs also were the A30s with their distinct N47. The water was very calm, the whales spread themselves out through the whole channel and paraded to the North. We only got a few IDs of them, but enough to make us think that all of the R5s were present. We saw for sure R22,R29,R25 and the A30s. At one point we thought we heard A4 calls too but we have to review our tape to be positive. It was an amazing parade of about 30 whales visiting this area, and for us a dream that became true.