VICTORIA — Engineer Jashan Bains is the first to spot a black dorsal fin cutting through the water.

"Whale, one o'clock," he says.

It's a September morning on board the Hecate Sentinel, a 20-metre long skimming vessel, one of eight ships the Western Canada Marine Response Corp. maintains in Sidney, B.C., and one of eight bases along the B.C. coast.

Captain Dylan Adams, safety co-ordinator Lauren Walker and the rest of the bridge crew turned to see a second, then a third fin appear. They belong to a trio of killer whales.

"We don't see orcas that often," Adams says, glancing up from the instruments. "I would say it is more of a rare occurrence. It's because they are so fast, they don't spend a lot of time on the surface."

For Adams and the rest of crew, the unexpected encounter is also

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