Captain Craig and I left Friday Harbor with a group of enthusiastic guests to explore the wonder the islands have to offer. Having only heard news of whales heading west past Trial Island (near Victoria) -which is too far for us to reach, especially in a rolly-polly Haro Strait - we headed north to see what we could find.

Today was an eagle-packed day. We saw mating pairs left and right, first at O'Neil Island, then on one of the Cactus Islands. We also saw eagles flying past islands...

It must be since Capt. Hook just arrived!  That is right, we spent the day with good old Capt. Hook and, in this story, his jolly gals.  And we did not have to go more than twenty minutes down San Juan Channel before we met up with them.  Transient orcas T40, or Capt. Hook as he is affectionately known, and two females were traveling north up through Griffin Bay on the east side of San Juan Island today.  It was a quick trip from the dock for us and the rest of the whale watch fleet...

Okay, well it was actually all of us on the M/V Sea Lion that were doing the rocking and rolling, but I am sure that the orcas were having some fun too.  Especially if all of the breaches by the calf were any indication of their state of mind.  The waters were rough, (unusual for the San Juan Islands), but our guests were tougher and we prevailed in the end.  The orcas were spread all along the south end of San Juan Island in little clusters that were hard to find until we stumbled...

Working as a Naturalist, I have become accustomed to going with the flow (pardon the nautical idiom.) This is often an acquired skill for people, as wildlife has a way of constantly thwarting our wishes to watch them in their natural setting. With a world now filled with zoos, aquariums, and Sea Worlds expectations are often high to have wildlife cooperate with our desires, even ones outside these man-made settings. The orcas have started coming back into this area very frequently -...

You will be a hit in this hat, made in the USA

Only $19.95 and made in the U.S of A! Soft and light. Mails easily and does not break!

Today was a unique day. Most of the 23 people aboard the Sea Lion were part of a wedding party. The funny thing is, no one told me a couple was getting married on board. It was innocuously written in our reservation book. When I asked the pastor if he needed the space cleared of people for the ceremony he said to me "These are all our guests." And he didn't just mean the people they'd brought with them. There were several guests in the cabin who didn't even realize two people were...

Many of the islands in the San Juans were named for the Spanish explorers who first recorded coming across them. Like those explorers, we felt gratified in circumnavigating our 15 by ten mile island that we call home. We left Friday Harbor and headed south. The water was smooth like a mirror and our new naturalist Casey looked for wildlife while I entertained our guests with facts about the islands. Soon we came across rocks covered in harbor seals about to burst. Pupping season is...

L pod!  Transients?  L pod?  Transients!

It was a confusing day with orcas today.  With L pod having been spotted the day before in Haro Strait, when orcas were first seen off the Southern end of San Juan Island everyone assumed it was the Residents again.  The whale watch fleet was deployed, as were the various researchers, to spend time with our famed orcas.  What a surprise it was then, especially to me since I had just informed our boat load of guests all about the local pods...

PRESS RELEASE:
By Jackie Wolf, IOSA Coordinator

The recent oil rig disaster and subsequent endless flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico has once again raised the horrifying specter of a really big oil spill here in our own precious part of the world. Sitting as we do right in the middle of major shipping lanes, islanders pay close attention when a spill such as the Exxon-Valdez occurs and now the pouring of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

What many islanders are discovering as a...

Today we departed Friday Harbor having heard word a gray whale was passing right on through the San Juan Channel! This was exciting news, because not is it a relatively uncommon event to see a gray whale in the waters around the San Juan Islands, it is even more unusual for a gray whale to pass by Friday Harbor.
With extra time on our hands, we left the harbor, stopped on by O'Neill Island and saw some bald eagles and passed by Speiden Island to view some exotic deer and sheep...