This morning I awoke to my phone ringing at 9am. It was the Interpretive Specialist at Lime Kiln State Park- a superpod was right off of Lime Kiln. Last night, on the way home from our sunset tour, Captain Craig predicted we would have a superpod because he heard from the Canadians that 50 orcas were headed this way from Victoria. On our sunset tour, we had followed Ruffles and Granny of J Pod as they headed south down the west side of San Juan Island (Victoria is only 9 miles away...

The day after fourth of July, all was sunny. There were reports of orcas at Point Roberts, just south of the northern border that we share with Canada. It would take us an hour and a half to get there, so you can imagine our relief when we received word of a pod closer- at East Point on Saturna Island to be exact.

The trip sped by as I talked to customers and attended to people's needs. Before I knew it, I looked out the port window and the east of San Juan island had already passed...

There is certainly a lot of excitement on the water today, from a variety of boats and yachts to BBQs on the shore, but most importantly..the orcas whales!  We headed to the west side of San Juan Island today to oo and awe in the presence of our resident J-pod orcas.  We spotted the orcas off every direction of the boat.  Not to mention that two bald eagles were flying above us.  The orcas were spread out from each other, occasionally joining with a family member to travel in a small...

What a great start to the holiday weekend with this beautiful day! We traveled north to meet the whales traveling down the west side of San Juan Island. The nice weather and holiday brought out many boaters who were also excited to observe the Orcas.  The Orcas are an endangered species so there are many laws and regulations about boat behavior around them. Soundwatch is local non profit organization that provides boater education to recreational vessels and monitors commercial...

We met up with members of the Southern Resident Orca Community off the south end of Lopez Island today. I was immediately able to identify Raggedy (or K40). She is easily identifiable because of her "raggedy" dorsal fin. The orcas appeared to be fishing. They were very spread out, traveling in no particular direction, and taking longer dives than usual. We traveled with the animals as the headed toward Cape San Juan. Some of the orcas were traveling in a tight-knit group off the...

Even though the day started out with some drizzle and clouds it wound up being another glassy calm day on the water. Fortunately the drizzle stopped shortly after we left the dock and we made our way over to the west side of San Juan Island where the Orcas were reported to be. We traveled south along the island watching the whales calmly move along. They were in no rush as they occasional changed direction and milled about. Their slow pace offered some wonderful views of these...

The water looked like glass tonight as we headed out of Friday Harbor in search of the Orcas. Earlier on the afternoon trip we observed K pod just outside of Cattle pass slowly traveling north on the west side of San Juan Island but this evening there were new reports of whales even closer by. We quickly caught up to them as they traveled along Stuart Island. After only a moment of observing this pod I saw that familiar wavy dorsal fin pop up and knew we were in the presence of J-pod...

Our San Juan Safari photo contest may have a few new impressive entries because this evening's sunset tour was truly "picture perfect".

The sun was low in the sky, illuminating the clouds and creating a soft glow upon the water.

Two majestic bald eagles, with 7 foot wingspans, soared above us as we headed north towards S. Pender Island.
Our crew was thrilled that we were able to cross into Canadian waters.  We said goodbye to the U.S. and hello to the orca whales!  We spotted at...

In the San Juan Islands, we are blessed with an abundance of wildlife. We are one of 7 places on Earth with a high population of orcas. Almost every single day for the past two weeks we have seen them off the west side of our very own island, San Juan. The west side of the island is where the land based whale watching park is located. Like a stationary sentinel, it watches the orcas foraging off the cliffs below.  We are one of the few places in the world where you can see 'black and...

Meaning that it was calm and relaxed and just a chill day on the water.  L pod is known for being a little more relaxed in their activities and that energy carries over to the whole trip.  A calf did treat us to a goodbye breach though.  Our cruise started out with some excitement when a bald eagle flew over the M/V Sea Lion just after we pulled out of our slip.  Despite the sea gulls that were trying to chase it away the eagle dropped down to the water, talons extended, and pulled...