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.