[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...

[Naturalist Erick, M/V Sea Lion, 8/20/17, 1:30PM]

            On Sunday, Captain Mike, Rachel, and I started on another super exciting wildlife and whale tour. We headed east towards some reports of Transient Orcas (the ones that eat marine mammals) and soon spotted them swimming south around Matia Island. It was the T065A’s! This is a pretty spectacular family of Transient Orcas, and one of my favorites. I have seen them hunt so many different prey in so many different ways. They...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Sea Lion, 8/19/17, 5:30PM]

The evening trips aboard the Sea Lion are my absolute favorite. We are coming up on the last week of them, but each time I go on one, it’s just so much more relaxing, there usually are less boats on the water, and less folks on the boat. Oh yeah, and the lighting is just spectacular. This evening we started out by heading north. We stopped at one of our favorite places, Flattop Island, to look at some Harbor Seals, Bald Eagles...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Kestrel, 8/18/17, 2:00PM]

            For our second Friday trip, Captain Mike and I took a bunch of folks out. We started by going to see some of the Harbor Seals that like to hang out on the rocks and in the water around Flattop Island. Flattop Island is one of the smaller islands in the archipelago that is managed by the Bureau of Land Management or U.S. Fish and Wildlife that is preserved for wildlife and no humans are allowed on it. We saw at least...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Kestrel,  8/18/17, 10:00AM]

Finally Friday! On this day Captain Mike and I headed out on an wildlife adventure with just a few folks in the morning. One of the families (matrilines) of Orcas (Killer Whales) that we had been seeing the past few weeks was spotted pretty close from land. We zipped over to Harney Channel in between Orcas and Shaw Islands. There they were tranquilly swimming along the Shaw Island shoreline. This particular family of Orcas was...

[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...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Kestrel, 8/9/17, 2:00PM]

On our afternoon trip for the day, Gabe and I and all the lovely folks aboard started another exciting search for some cool marine wildlife. Our first stop was one of our favorites. We motored down to Whale Rocks. These two Islets emerge from the waves of Cattle Pass just southwest of Lopez Island. You can see them from the shores of both Lopez and San Juan, and when they are covered by our favorite pinnipeds you can definitely...

[8/15/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 5:30PM]

Some days, whales are juuuust out of reach from us, and that is okay! We understand that the animals we are searching for are wild, and orcas can actually swim 35 mph and travel up to 100 miles in a day! We always want to see whales, but we also have a great deal of other amazing wildlife that fills these islands in the Salish Sea that we want to share with travelers. We actually have 4 species of baleen whale, 2 species of dolphin...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Kestrel, 8/9/17, 10:00AM]

On Wednesday, Captain Gabe and I started on the search for families (matrilines) of Transient (Bigg’s) Orcas. While in the Salish Sea this summer we have not seen the Southern Resident orcas much this summer, we have seen many of the Transient (Bigg’s) Orca matrilines. The main difference between these two distinct, non-interbreeding populations that swim through the Salish Sea is their diet. The Southern Residents eat only fish...