Can you believe it?  Winter is gone and we are back on the water again!

Hello all, it is me, your intrepid marine naturalist here to guide you, teach you, entertain you and celebrate with you all things orca and wildlife. It was a wet but mild winter and now we have graduated to a cool blustery spring. The skies are happy, the plants and wildlife are happy and we salty dogs are happy to be back at what we love. Traveling the waterways of the San Juan Islands.

Today we took our...

This will be my last post of the season....we are now officially finished with all daily trips. My my how the summer has blown by! We'll still be running whale watching & wildlife tours for the next 3 Saturdays of October...the 10th, 17th, & 24th.

A wonderful way to end my season out here with Orcas still in the waters! A bit of a breezy day with whitecaps and chop, the wind out of the north, and the crisp feeling of autumn in the air. The Orcas were first seen coming south from...

All good things must come to an end and this is just about it. Today was our last weekday trip of the season. As of tomorrow, we will only be going out on Saturdays through the month of October and then we will be done for good. Do not despair though, the orcas will be back next season and so will we. In the meantime, here is the address of a blog that is both educational and entertaining and will satisfy your daily hunger for blog sustenance.

http://bitterendblog.com/

It is not...

What a season this has been. This is my first year working out on the boats and I love it. I always knew that I would be a good boat person and I am. I have turned into such a wharf rat, it is unbelievable. Even on days that I am not scheduled to be out, that is the only place that I want to be. At the end of the day, if there is still sunlight, then there is still time to be on the water. And it is not just the orcas that have made this such an outstanding experience, even...

It was a long trip today, but well worth it. A small group of guests joined us on the M/V Sea Lion and enjoyed a tour of Orcas Island and the State Marine Parks to the north as we motored to Birch Bay near Blaine, Washington. That is the farthest northeast that either Jaclyn or I have been and it is always fun to find some new water.

Of course, it is all home to our resident orcas and they were cruising through life today near the Canadian border. The groups were small and spread out...

Luckily, we did not have to look too far today, although the orcas were being a bit cagey. Capt. Craig took us out of Friday Harbor at an exaggeratedly slow speed, because the Coast Guard had sent out a radio warning about a submerged house boat that was adrift in San Juan Channel. How something can be submerged and adrift I do not know, but we were on the lookout for it. That was just the distraction that we needed though. We were nearly to Turn Island and we had not gotten up to speed yet when...

Once again we turned our bow towards Victoria and Canada today. The orcas, J pod to be exact, were at the Victoria Harbor heading east in a resting pattern. Capt. Craig tried to give them some time to swim to us by stopping to view other wildlife, but the orcas were swimming too slowly and we needed to be making better time. So he jumped on the throttle and away we flew along the south end of San Juan Island and across Haro Strait. There were a few minutes of indecision when an...

It would be easier for me to list the animals that we did not see today, rather than to list the ones that we did. I think that the only sightings that we did not log were of the Titanic and the Loch Ness Monster. Jaclyn and I could hardly contain our excitement, which is to say that we completely abandoned all trappings of professionalism to run around the boat screaming, every time we saw something new. Capt. Craig insured that we saw all that we could today by monitoring the...

It was a whalestravaganza today on the water. Orcas from the north, orcas from the south and us in the middle of it all. East Point on Saturna Island was the meeting spot and the Strait of Georgia was the playground. I was hoping that we would see all of the whales get together, but I did not think that it would actually happen. It did though and Capt. Pete, Kathy and I were there on the M/V Sea Lion to see it. Our guests saw it too, so it was a stunning day all the way around.

After what appeared to be the start of fall and winter, we are now back to the September weather that we are all so fond of. September really is the best month to see the islands and today was a perfect example of that.

I welcomed a lovely group of guests onto the M/V Kittiwake this afternoon and we headed off on our tour. The orcas were at the south end and west side of San Juan Island today, so it was difficult to decide where to go. Capt. Bill did a fabulous job though, and after...