Today in the Salish Sea, the Sea Lion departed North of Friday Harbor from San Juan Island in search of wildlife for Mother’s Day. The sky was scattered with clouds, but the day was quiet and beautiful. Harbor seals were quickly spotted bobbing in the waters outside of the harbor, and sea birds darted into the waters alongside the boat. Into the trip, Stellar’s sea lions were spotted basking (and arguing) on a rocky outcrop jutting from the water’s surface. Being the largest sea lion...

Yesterday we had our first evening trip for this season and it was one for the books!  Earlier in the day we saw all of members of J pod, a total of 24 whales, resting together on the South West side of San Juan Island.  Thankfully, the whales decided to stay in the area for our evening trip, which allowed our guests to have a relaxing and enjoyable view of these Southern resident killer whales.  On our way to the whale sighting we came across some playful Dall’s porpoise.  Always a...

The crew of the M/V Sea Lion was momentarily intimidated by the drenching drizzle and low visibility in Friday Harbor today.  But once introduced to our enthusiastic roster of guests, we couldn’t help but get pumped to point out wildlife and share our knowledge of the wondrous Salish Sea ecosystem. 

Our first stop was Green Point on Spieden Island.  Not one sea lion was hauled out here and I began to fear that we were losing our cast to the gravity of breeding grounds.  Then noses...

We were lucky enough to leave the dock with reports of transient orca’s south of San Juan Island.  We knew we were going to need to go a little further today than usual but the reports were still in our reach and we wanted to make sure we gave our guests the best trip we could in our power.  As we headed down San Juan Channel past the Southern tip of San Juan Island we enjoyed the beautiful view of the surrounding Northern Cascade mountains as well as the Olympic mountains and the...

(May 7, 2017)  After a couple of weeks of hanging lefts out of Friday Harbor and heading for Canadian waters to watch transient orca, humpback, grey, and minke whales, it felt strange to bear right and run south in San Juan Channel.  Such a move often signals that our resident killer whale pods have returned to hunt salmon on the west side of the archipelago, and today was no exception.

Before we reached our destination, we stumbled upon a small pod of Dall’s porpoise.  Our...

Today we left Friday Harbor with the exciting report of J pod hanging around the San Juan Islands.  We headed around to the North side of Orcas Island where we saw a few Steller’s Sea Lions swimming around as well as a harbor seal.  We also got some great looks at a pod of harbor porpoise.  Harbor porpoise tend to be a bit shy around boats so it is always exciting when we get excellent look at them from our vessel.  We hugged the North shore of Sucia Island where we saw a bald eagle...

It’s difficult to process the contrast of watching a humpback whale sluggishly swimming along one minute to witnessing it leap from the water like a gigantic trout the next.  When our guests were confronted with this mind-bender north of San Juan Island, expressions oscillated from surprise, to elation, to puzzlement.  Did you see that too?  How does a 50-foot whale clear the surface?  Why did it do that?  So many questions, and so few answers. 

Scientists think breaching behavior...

It’s a bit rainy here today in the Pacific Northwest (good one, right?) but that didn’t stop our guests from being excited and enthusiastic about looking for wildlife.  We left Friday Harbor with no whale reports, not uncommon for this time of year.  We decided to head North toward the Canadian Gulf Islands.  As we were traveling we came across some harbor porpoise in the larger channels.  As we continued along our search route we came across a number of bald eagles, both perched and...

Big Mama the humpback whale was spotted fishing with friends just north of the border today.  After marveling at her broad back, knobby head, and impressive blows, we turned around to find another adult and juvenile humpback feeding in the same vicinity.  Humpbacks are solitary beasts, but are known to congregate at productive feeding sites.  Adult whales spend their day gulping about 3,000 pounds of tiny crustaceans or schooling fish, such as sand lance, surf smelt, or herring.  A...

Today I want to write about the foundation of the entire food chain in the Salish Sea as well as all the worlds ocean.  That’s right, I’m talking about plankton!  There are two types of plankton that exist: phytoplankton, tiny plants, and zooplankton, tiny animals.  Because phytoplankton are in fact plants, they are going spend a majority of time at the surface of the water in order to have access to their main food source, the sun.  These animals are going to photosynthesize in...