09/01/17- M/V Kestrel- 2PM

Today some of our best known transient orcas were on the North side of Orcas Island, not a far boat ride from Friday Harbor. 

We headed up president’s channel where we looked at some beautiful seaside homes and saw some wildlife including some harbor seals and harbor porpoises.  We then headed around the North side of Orcas Island where we got a beautiful view of Mt. Baker.  Mt. Baker is about 10,500ft in elevation and is part of the Northern Cascade...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Sea Lion, 8/31/17, 1:30PM]

            On Thursday, Captain Pete, Rachel, and I took a great group of folks out on a wildlife watching adventure! We started out by heading west towards Vancouver Island to search for large baleen whales to the south of the Canadian city of Victoria. After crossing Haro Strait we saw a blow off in the distance! As we got closer we saw a small Humpback Whale swimming near Constance Bank. This one was a young one, but that...

09/01/17- M/V Kestrel- 2PM

M/V Sea Lion departed from Friday Harbor and headed South to go find one of the best-known transient orca families in the area. 

The T65A’s are a family consisting of a 31-year-old female and her four offspring.  This family is considered one of the most successful transient families in the Salish Sea because of the reproductive success and varied prey choices.  T65A, theoretically, still has 15+ years of reproduction left and she already has four surviving...

08/30/17- M/V Sea Lion- 1:30PM

Today we were lucky enough to find some transient killer whales on the North side of Orcas Island.  Specifically, we were looking at the T36A’s, a nice group of whales consisting of females and juveniles. 

People commonly ask the naturalists about the whale’s movement patterns and where we find the animals day to day.  When we wake up in the morning we never know where we may be traveling for our tour that day.  These animals move, on average, about 100...

[09/08/2017- M/V Kestrel- Kelsey, Naturalist- 2:00PM]

Today brought some drizzle, fog, and cloud cover (which has brought the smoke down quite a bit, yay!), but by the afternoon we had some better visibility and could forge our way south to an orca whale report!

M/V Kestrel zipped down to Port Townsend, but not before stopping at a Tufted puffin in Cattle Pass! It’s very rare to be seeing these clownish birds in our range, much less on the south point of San Juan Island! It was so...

[09/5/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 1:30PM]

Smoke and clouds were overcasting the skies today, but luckily that provided for some awesome whale watching! The seas were glassy, there was no glare from sunlight, and looking for dark whale bodies surfacing for air against a light gray sea was easy as pie.

M/V Sea Lion departed Friday Harbor and headed south through Cattle Pass and towards Salmon Bank. A “bank” is what we refer to as a shallow portion of water out here in our...

[08/29/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 1:30PM]

Smoke returned slightly to the San Juan Islands today, but that didn’t get us down on our whale watch and wildlife tour on M/V Sea Lion!

We departed Friday Harbor in high spirits, ready to see what would await us as we trekked through some of the most beautiful parts of the inner islands of the San Juans. We departed Friday Harbor and headed East past Shaw Island, Lopez Island, and Orcas Island. Near the ferry terminal at Lopez, we...

[08/22/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 1:30PM]

Up until about 2002, there hadn’t been any humpback whales seen in the Salish Sea for over 60 years, because they were hunted until they were close to extinction. Since being put on the endangered species list, they have made quite the comeback, and now we are seeing quite a regular population (that’s on the rise!) returning to the San Juan Islands during the summer months when they are feeding. Today, we got a chance to see a...

[08/19/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 1:30PM]

We had quite some luck today! We had some transient, or mammal-eating, orcas juuust off the north end of San Juan Island near Henry Island just as we were departing Friday Harbor. We had them easily within reach, and we decided to take our time to see them by detouring around some of the special islands here in the San Juans.

We first visited Flattop Island, where we spotted bunches of harbor seals hauled out on the shorelines and...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Sea Lion, 8/17/17, 1:30PM]

The weather here in the San Juans has definitely changed for the better. A few days ago the wind shifted and blew the smoky haze away, it rained!, and the temperature cooled down again. On this beautiful, cool, and sunny day Captain Gabe, Rachel, and I all took a full boat on a search for some fun nature!

Bald Eagles

Today we took an inter-island route since there were some whale reports on the other side of the islands. We...