Whale Watching Report

9:30am
We started out our trip with lots of wildlife within the first 5 minutes. We had a bald eagle, a harbor seal mom with pup, pelagic cormorants, pigeon guillemots, and a belted kingfisher flew right in front of our bow. We got early word that orcas were spotted on the west side of San Juan Island. We headed in that direction and there was a fog bank we had to go through at the south end of Lopez Island. We did slow down to take a look at lots and lots of harbor seals hauled out on the rocks just off Colville Island. There were some seal pups mixed in with this group. We also spotted a pair of adult bald eagles perched on Colville Island. Soon their fledgling came flying in from above. He or she flew right in and started begging one of the adults for food. Before long that adult had enough of the begging and took flight just as we were pulling away. Luckily we broke out of the fog at the south end of San Juan Island near Salmon Bank, just as we found some J-pod orcas. They looked like they were chasing salmon around with lots of changes of direction. The first orca we watched fishing was Blackberry, J27. Then Oreo, J22, Cookie, J38, and DoubleStuf J34 entertained us as they swam in circles. At times it looked like they might be chasing salmon and at times it looked like they were just playing around. One of the three even spyhopped for us. The orcas swam north along the shore as we parallel viewed them along the way. We spent a lot of time watching Blackberry, and his sister, Tsuchi, J31 swimming along. Blackberry did one big breach at close range!! One young orca held his or her tail flukes up in the air as if to wave to us. That was a great way to say goodbye to J-pod this morning. Naturalist Bart Rulon

3:30pm
Just as we left the dock this afternoon we started out with an adult bald eagle perched high up on a rocky cliff on Fidalgo Island. Our orcas hadn't moved very far from their spot this morning so we took the same route around the south end of Lopez Island. The tide was coming up and we saw many harbor seals swimming around in the water. We finally found the orcas just north of Lime Kiln Park. L-pod orcas had come in from the west and joined up with J-pod. They were obviously happy to see each other because the orcas were very active. We got to see lots of breaches, spyhops, cartwheels, tail slaps, tail lobs, and just a whole lot of rolling around at the surface!! This was the most active I've seen the orcas so far this week. We saw too many J & L pod members to mention them all, but they included the adult males Faith, L57, and Ruffles, J1. We decided to take a return route through the inner San Juan Islands which were absolutely beautiful as the sun went down. We even managed to see more bald eagles as we cruised through the islands. The water was like a lake out there today to help make this whole day fantastic for watching wildlife. Naturalist Bart Rulon

3:30 trip
This afternoon we worked our way south through Rosario Straits, and around the south end of Lopez Island. First we found a bald eagle and a few harbor seals near Colville Island. We spotted several harbor seals swimming around as we headed out to Middle Bank to find K-pod. They were spread out and swimming west. The first two orcas we spent time with were Cappuccino, K21, and Raggedy, K40. Shortly after we started parallel viewing them the brother and sister pair started swimming side by side and they surfaced at the same time for five breaths in a row. Later we had Cali, K34 come over and pay us a visit. Next Spock, K20, and Comet, K38 swam over for a good close-up view at our stern. On our way back to the dock we stopped in at Castle Rock and saw a harbor seal mom with her pup hauled out on a rock. Two ravens were perched high up on the island also. Mount Rainier and Mount Baker were both visible at the same time as we worked around the south end of Lopez Island. Rainier looked especially bright tonight. As we headed east through Rosario Straits we saw lots of harbor porpoise surfacing at several different spots. Other wildlife we saw today included pelagic cormorants, pigeon guillemots, rhinoceros auklets, and common murres. The weather was beautiful on top of all our wildlife sightings making it a great trip. Naturalist Bart Rulon

Blowing Steam

Photo by Naturalist Kate Janes