After the amazing encounters that we had yesterday, I wasn't sure the trip today would be able to compare, but boy was I wrong! When we first headed out, we had an awesome surprise: a  juvenile humpback surface a couple hundred yards in the distance by Roche Harbor. It went about feeding and showing us lovely fluke patterns. The Humpback ended up circumnavigating San Juan Island. These whales can eat up to two ton of food a day! It didn't take us long before the M/V Kittiwake was...

I saw more whales breaching today than any other whale watch I have ever been on!  Just off the southern west side of San Juan Island we were able to witness the super pod greeting ceremony of the southern resident killer whales. This super pod is referring to J , K, and L pods being in one area where they come back together in a place with a high density of food ( chinook salmon) to potentially breed and share knowledge and customs. But what does this mean for a whale watching boat...

The M/V Sea Lion and Kittiwake left Friday Harbor today with great reports of killer whales off the west side of San Juan Island. What was so great about this report you ask? The reports were of one of our resident pods that was thought to have left the night before: K Pod! We have only seen K Pod in this area for the last three days. For over a month now these whales have been MIA, or missing in action. They have finally gotten the memo that the Chinook Salmon, there favorite food...

Today we arrived at the M/V Sea Lion with a report of Resident orcas traveling quickly to the southwest. Naturalist Aimee, Captain Pete and I consulted and decided that we would try to catch up with them! Orcas can swim over 100 miles in a single day and can reach speeds in excess of 35 miles per hour. We had a great group on board today who were very excited to be out on the water. We all were hoping that the orcas stayed close enough so that we could catch up with them!

On the way...

Arriving at the boat today, Captain Pete informed Rachel and myself that there were reports of part of K-pod in the area! If this was true, this is the first time K-pod has been in this summer. M/V Sea Lion and guests left the docks at 1:30 and motored over to Battleship Island to encounter the orcas. In the lead was a small group of K-pod.

The orcas were very spaced out, but guests got to see several small groups of orcas! We continued to motor north with them and slowing down once...

We departed the docks today with sunny skies above. It would seem like every day in the San Juan's is just as beautiful as the next; however, today was clear enough so that we had a panoramic view of the Cascade mountain range with Mt. Baker in the center,  as well as Mt. Rainier and the Olympics. Guests got a spectacular view of these mountains as we headed out through the San Juan Channel and out through cattle Pass. It wasn't long before we started seeing what everyone wanted to...

Today deviated from the norm for Captain Jim and I today, since we had a charter on M/V Kittiwake that didn't start till around 6:30 pm. Both of us are fairly use to being out on the water earlier in the day, and this was a great chance to see the changes in nature and the surrounding wildlife...oh and did I mention the sunset? With the slowly fading light, navigating the waters can become a bit more challenging, but when you look up and see brilliant orange and pink sunsets with...

Today was a full day of whale awesomeness! We had 2 great trips on the water today. The first trip we caught up with J pod on the west side of San Juan Island near Lime Kiln. We were able to spend some quality time with the whales and get some great close looks at L87  (Onyx) who is commonly seen with Jpod and traveling with J2 our southern resident that is estimated to be 103 years old! We continued the action on the second trip.

We caught up with the whales again near Turn Point on...

We had a fun filled day out on the Sea Lion this afternoon!  We left the dock and headed to the south side of San Juan Island by way of Haro Strait.   We got to the whales on the South West side on San Juan Island.  We traveled alongside J27, J31, and J39 (Blackberry, Tsuchi, and Mako).  All three of these orcas are siblings.  My youngest of the three, Mako, was being very playful and breaching continuously while we watched them.  He made fora great whale watching trip.   After...

As we left San Juan Island yesterday, everyone couldn’t help but comment on what a phenomenal day it was.  Sunny skies, no wind, and flat calm glassy waters- oh, and the 40 or so killer whales that were in the area helped a little too! As Captain Mike, Chelsea and I motored out into the San Juan Channel, we made our way up to the north end of the Island where we met up with J and L Pod. For those of you who are just tuning in, J and L Pod are made up of Southern Resident Orcas, a...