Discover Sooke

Last night, while training with the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, Unit #37 Sooke, in the vessel, Spirit of Sooke, we chanced upon the return of T-40, or otherwise known by his identifying name, “Captain Hook”. After returning home, I searched on the internet for information about this large male Orca and it appears that he hasn’t been seen around these waters for many, many years. Perhaps as many as 3 years. He, and his group of ladies, are normally sighted off the coast of Alaska. So this is very neat and interesting news to have them return to the Sooke area.

I was at the helm, while my 3 team members were on navigation, practising with radar, when I spotted what appeared to be a weird wave/splash about 500 metres ahead. The backdrop was the coast along West Coast Rd. and we were about 1.5 kilometres off the Sooke Bluffs, right beside Whiffen Spit. As we got closer, I witnesses another large splash, this time I could tell that whatever it was, was definitely in the water and not large waves breaking along the shoreline. I alerted the rest of the team members to what I saw and we cut the engines and sat idle for a moment, waiting to see if it would happen again.

And then, it happened, but this time closer, about 200 yards away. A large orca shot right out of the water and landed with a large splash on his side. Russ Nicks, CCGA-P member and owner/operator of Sooke Coastal Explorations here in Sooke was on the hunt to identify which family of whales we were looking at. With bennys in hand, we sat still in the water with the engines off while these large creatures slide quietly beside us, heading East towards Victoria.

Immediately Russ identified the large male as T-40, Captain Hook. Russ is very knowledgeable with identifying whales, however Captain Hook is pretty easy to spot with his large, 6+ foot dorsal fin with a bend over hook, making him stand out amongst the rest of the known whales around these parts of the waters.

We enjoyed the 15 minutes of quiet and solitute, watching these large creatures swim by us in their hunt for prey, about 4 in total, one lookig like a very young calf. Once they moved far enough away from our vessel, we started our engines and continued on with our training. But what a great surprise to have last night.

So we’d like to officially welcome Captain Hook and his harum of ladies/babies back into the Sooke waters. Hopefully they’ll be around the southern part of Vancouver Island for some time.

Mark Malleson, whale photographer and driver with Prince of Whales, has taken an older photos of Captain Hook on his website. Please take a peek and be sure to check out all the rest of amazing photos of whales that Mark has taken over the years. I personally feel Mark Malleson has probably one of the nicest collections of whale photos from the southern part of the island than anyone else that I can think of.

Not only is he a talented whale photographer, but he’s very knowledgeable about the whales and his passion shows. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Mark a couple of times and he’s a great guy. He’s very much into preservation and making sure these whales are treated with the care and respect they deserve.

Check out his website: Mark Malleson Photography

Filed under: Latest News on May 7th, 2009