Headed south down the east side of San Juan Island.A single mature bald eagle was spotted up in a tree. We paused to view it, then off it went. We went a bit further south, then stopped a rock outcrop with TONS of Stellars Sea Lions. Lounging, posturing, snoozing, swimming. They where piled up with scads of  cormorants and a variety of gulls. You could smell that these animals were all fish eaters. (Hey, watch it, I kinda like that fragrance!) The boat sat with the engine off and...

Yes, we saw orca whales today on the 2nd of October - late in the whale watching season.  We took off from Friday Harbor, San Juan Island heading north toward Spieden Island.  As we neared Speiden, one of the guests spotted a large brown head which turned out to be a great big stellar sea lion fishing by himself.  We stayed on the south side of Speiden and Shelly spotted a mature bald eagle up in a tree. Down below the Mouflon Sheep and Sitka Deer were roaming about.

We pushed on to...

We only have a few more trips left in our season up here, but the whales don't know that.  Today we found members of our resident pods K and L, almost 50 whales, spread out in Haro Strait heading up to Turn Point.  We were able to identify K20 (possibly with a new calf?  yet to be confirmed), L87, L41, L88, and  K40.  We got to see a wide range of behaviors and all our passengers were very excited.

On the way home we stopped along Spieden and saw many harbor seals on the rocks, as...

Today was arguably one of the warmest, nicest days of the season.  We were lucky enough to encounter a single Minke up north in Boundary Pass.  The water was like glass, and it's not often that we find Minkes up that way.  As we came around Turn Point we also came across a pretty elusive group of Dall's Porpoise.  They showed enough of themselves for our passengers to get a good look, but weren't too interested in hanging out otherwise.

On the way home we also found a few Bald Eagles...

Today started off gray and rainy.  We got everyone suited up in rain jackets and blankets as we started down San Juan Channel.  We definitely took some spray over the side and the rain was getting everyone sitting up on the bow.  But we had a hardy group of people on board that were ready for the adventure.

We stopped just outside of Friday Harbor to check out quite a few Harbor Seals hauled out on the rocks and got an added bonus of a Bald Eagle perched in the middle of everything. ...

Summer seems to have left the islands as quickly as it arrived, but the animals are still around!  We headed out in to Haro Strait this afternoon and came across a group of Transient Orca.  The Residents haven't been seen in a day or two, but the Transients were a great encounter.  The mature male of the group had a huge dorsal fin which gave our passengers a very big target to photograph.

On the way home we added another cetacean to our check list when we came across a nice group of...

All summer I have been thinking everyone was pulling my leg telling me that summer just gets nicer and nicer and then September is the best month of the year.  I was convinced that it would be 40 degrees and raining by now.  I seem to have been mistaken.  This week has been the warmest of the year and it has been beyond beautiful on the water.

We left and headed south out of the harbor.  Fat seals were lazing on the rocks and Steller's Sea Lions were cruising around on the prowl in...

"What else could we have possibly have seen today?" was a great question that I was asked as we headed back into the harbor.  "Not much" was my answer.  We had an amazing encounter with resident whales today that started with them spread out all over the south west side of the island, merging into small groups, and ended with them meeting up, West Side Story style (without the violence), and then all swimming off into the sunset together.  There were somewhere between 20 and 30...

With two full boats, we headed up north across the border and into Canadian waters, all in search of the Southern Resident Killer Whales that had been out to sea (to the best of our knowledge) for a few days.  We ended up in the Strait of Georgia, just south of the city of Vancouver, when a passenger tapped me on the shoulder and said, "look, there!"  And there they were!  Orcas spanning over a quarter of a mile were lined up in smaller groups and heading north.  As we paralleled...

The sun may have been shining today, but it was raining marine mammals!!! Shortly after leaving Friday Harbor and heading south we saw a large group of Harbor porpoise. We cut the engine and the miniature Cetaceans that are famously shy were all around the boat and even porpoising out of the water, exposing much of their flanks. Then once in Salmon Bank a Minke whale’s long back broke the surface and was soon followed by its small hooked dorsal fin.

As we entered Cattle Pass back...