Whale Watching Report

We spotted our first wildlife before we even left the dock today. A bald eagle flew over our boat as we gave our passengers a pre-trip orientation. Some purple sea stars were visible on the breakwater with the low tide as we left Cap Sante marina. We decided to cruise through the inner San Juan Islands to start our trip today. Another bald eagle soared right over our boat in Guemes Channel. Eventually we found resident orcas just as they were crossing over from Speiden Island toward the north end of San Juan Island. The first group we spotted was comprised of mostly J-pod orcas with a few K-pod orcas mixed in. We saw Ruffles J1, Granny J2, Polaris J28, J46, and Lobo K26 among others. They swam up toward a big kelp forest near battleship Island and the orcas all started porpoising as they hit the strong current. They kept swimming along the west side of Henry Island, and then Polaris breached twice as her calf J46 swam along! Later we cruised ahead to watch some other orcas including J26, Mike, and another younger orca. Both of them breached for us! Mike breached once and the younger male breached twice. After watching them for a while we moved ahead and visited Blackberry J27, Oreo, J22, Doublestuff, J34, Cookie, J38, Cappuccino K21, and Raggedy K40. They were all swimming in the same direction we had to travel in order to head back to the dock, so it gave us some extra time with the orcas. It was a great day! Naturalist Bart Rulon