16 December Cetaceanlab reports:

Winter has certainly arrived around the North Coast of British Columbia, as we are experiencing strong, cold outflow winds out of the mainland inlets. Chopping wood during this time of year is one of the most time consuming task for us, but yesterday afternoon we had a welcome break from doing just that as suddenly we heard Orca calls on our outside speakers.

It turned out that we were listening to the A5s and A4s on our "Home" station. The sun was just about to set, so we had no visual on the whales but we are sure that they travelled south in Squally Channel. For about 40 minutes we listened to their calls as they passed the entrance to Whale Channel. The two families must have decided to turn back to the north a little later, because we heard them again on our "Home" station just before 7pm. It was excactly the time where the tide turned from an ebb to a flood and the whales took perfect advantage of it. They entered Whale Channel, the A5s ahead of the A4s, and then passed quickly by our hydrophone at Borde Island. Their calls became very faint by 7:23pm. We don't know where the whales went after they were out of our acoustic range. We are waiting....