Today Captain Mike, Aimee and I started the day off with a lively charter out of Roche Harbor! We brought the M/V Sea Lion up from Friday Harbor to pick up a wonderful group. After a couple of days of no killer whales, it was awesome to see the Residents back in the Salish Sea. Oftentimes guests ask us when the whales will get to a certain area at a certain time, and no one can really answer that! The whales don't work on the same time frame as we do, they work completely on salmon...

This evening we headed out towards Victoria to see some reported resident orcas in the area.  We headed out and saw some harbor seals as well as a bald eagle in Cattle Pass.  We headed around the South side of San Juan Island.  We came upon the resident orcas near Victoria where we saw part of K pod!  Specifically we were looking at the K13's with are made up of K13 (Skagit), her offspring and her grand-offspring.  This immediate family is made up of 7 different individual whales....

This evening we left Friday Harbor with reports of humpbacks down by Victoria.  We headed down San Juan Channel into the Strait of Juan De Fuca.  On the way out we saw some harbor seals as well as some cormorants.  Cormorants are a diving species of bird that we see in this area.  They actually have the ability to dive over 100 feet in order to catch fish.  We traveled quite a distance but we then found a large group of humpbacks!  We were watching a group of 8 humpback whales...

A lovely Pacific Northwest day in the San Juans complete with our resident killer whales! Leaving Roche Harbor, reports had our resident killer whales heading south along the westside of the island. If the whales continued south it was a toss up whether or not we would catch up with them in time, but M/V Sea Hawk decided to go for it. With the tide switching, there was was a good chance that the whales would change direction, and luck would have it, they did! We were able to catch up...

Wednesday was not a typical summery day but the whales didn't seem to mind. We headed north out of Friday Harbor on M/ Sea lion   and caught up with whales through Mosquito Pass at Kellet Bluff on Henry Island. We had a decent group of J pod traveling north. We even got some really great, close looks at J2, Granny!!! J2 is the lead matriarch of the southern resident community and is estimated to be 103 Years old!!! She was traveling just outside of the whales that are thought to be...

Today the M/V Sea Lion had two great trips on the water- both located on the west side of San Juan Island. We left the docs with lots of questions and enthusiastic people just waiting to see some wildlife! Naturalist Chelsea and I feed on that kind of enthusiasm and love to answer all kind of questions. Among killer whales, we ended up seeing copious amounts of harbor seals, bald eagles, and even a pair of peregrine falcons!! It's rare in the parts to see the peregrine falcon since...

What a day! We had two amazing trips with yet another beautiful San Juan Island day. The waters were calm and glassy, making it look like the orcas just glide through glass. Today was a particularly special day for me because I had a couple of my college professors out on our afternoon tour with us. If it's one thing I know, it's the orcas out here. It was amazing to be able to educate them, and the rest of the guests aboard, about the social structure, culture, anatomy, and family's...

Woo! After a few days without our residents I was feeling a little separation anxiety from them. Not that our whale watches haven't been awesome with the transients but I was missing the regular residents. As we headed out on our 5:30pm sunset whale watch we heard the reports that a mixture of J, K, and L pods were heading our way from Victoria! The whales booked it our way and we caught up with them around Eagle Point and traveled north with them all the way past Lime Kiln to...

Captain Jim and I got to the Kittiwake this morning with zero reports of whales. We were planning out an awesome wildlife tour where we would be looking for the orcas, other whales, and some of the other wildlife in the area, when we got a call that there were transient orcas north of Sucia Island and Alden Bank in Canadian waters! I was super stoked that the transients were back in, as I had not seen them in a while. We had beautiful smooth water as we traveled north from Friday...

Saturday morning started a little rainy, and windy with no reports of whales. Naturalists Chelsea and Caitlin were a little concerned as we were leaving Friday Harbor. But soon after leaving we got a radio call from some whale watching boats that were out earlier and there were some transients in Rosario Strait heading toward Decatur Island! Hurray! We haven't seen transients in quite some time so we were excited. Transients killer whales are the ecotype that feed mainly on marine...