[Paddlewise] Whale Watching in San Juans

From: <Cpflanagan3_at_aol.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 15:18:57 EDT
<<  Do the whalewatching boats in the San Juans use a standard channel to
communicate?  >>

When we were there several years ago, most of the commercial whale tour boats 
subscribed to a 'whale watch service'.  Whale spotters, ashore on Vancouver 
Island, scanned the sea for orcas.  When the spot some, te notified their 
customers by sending coded messages to the boat captains' digital pagers.  An 
example;
  906 = J & L pods
  929 = whales moving fast
  2484 = grid reference for Eagle Pt., off S. tip San Juan Isle.
  1 = north

The boat captain had a reference sheet with all the codes on one side and a 
map of the islands with reference grid on the other.

This was enough to get them started in the right direction.  Once 'on-site', 
most of the skippers seemed to cooperate and share info via VHS.  (Sorry I 
don't remember the channel, but a scanning VHS should narrow it down.)

Chuck Flanagan

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Received on Mon Jul 19 2004 - 15:09:43 PDT

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