I know I have said it before, but I will say it again.  I love rainy day whale watches.  Not the gross, windy, perfect storm kind of days, but the days when everything is still and calm and you can see every bird, porpoise, and seal within five miles of you.  Today was one of those days.  From the second the passengers set foot on the boat today it felt like it was going to be an adventure.  I got lots of questions within the first few minutes of the trip and learned that among the...

Heading south from Friday Harbor, we had word that a potential transient pod was seen off Middle Bank and was headed further out towards the Strait of Juan De Fuca.  With the traveling pod in mind, we searched out in that direction.  After a about and hour and a half of travel, fifteen plus miles and some choppy seas, we spotted some whale watching vessels and then, at last, the orcas!  A pod of four to five unidentified transients were on the move, surfacing for several breaths and...

Wednesday arrived with sunny skies and the warmest temperatures of the season.  We departed a little early for our trip due to word of whales in the area.  We headed through Cattle Pass with the tide flooding against us.  As we cleared the pass and entered Haro straight Captain Craig pointed our bow south towards Partridge Bank.  But half way there we took a sharp right and headed up the straight as we spotted some Orca closer to our position.

We came on scene with just a couple...

Monday found us out in Rosario Straight.  The wind was picking up and there was a little bit of swell and chop, but it didn't deter us from spotting a very spread out group of Transient Orcas.  They were headed south at what seemed like a pretty good speed. There was one big male about 500 yards from us and two smaller whales another 600 or so yards from him.  They had consistent, 4 minute down times and would surface even farther from us every time.  The wind made it a challenge...

I have to say that some of my best whale days have been gross, rainy days.  Today was no exception.

We made our way down the east side of San Juan Island and around toward False Bay.  It was one of those silent, glassy, flat water days.  No seals hauled out, no sea lions on our way south.  We passed a bunch of soggy Cormorants and saw a Bald Eagle sitting on the ground.  When we got closer to Lime Kiln we saw blows way in by the rocks.  Then we saw a few more farther north. Then a...

It was a beautiful, calm day...the kind of day you just want to drive all the way to Vancouver...but it was worth it.
We heard tale of transients past East Point headed toward the coal docks.  We decided to make an attempt.

By the time we made it to the coal docks there was no turning back, eventhough the whales we still headed NW at a steady clip of 7-10 knots.  Finally another boat came into view.  Then we saw huge splashes.  Finally we caught up to the pod, almost.  They were...

What a beautiful day!  Our trip started out sunny and even a little bit warm.  We headed out of the harbor and up past Waldron toward East Point.  A passenger spotted a pair of bald eagles as soon as we were out of the slip and harbor seals were hauled out in full force along out trek up north.  Once we got to East Point we would see and hear a huge group of Stellar Sea Lions.  As we drew in closer we were treated to both Stellars and Harbor seals sharing the rock; although divided...

Announcing the Photo winners for 2011 in the category of whale photo: Janet Holba of WI. Winner for "wildlife" photo is Patty Quales of NC. These will be highlighted in the new 2011 sanjuansafaris.com website due to be published March 1, 2011.

BORN: Another new calf in the Southern Resident Killer Whales!

A new L Pod calf, initially spotted in Juan de Fuca Strait last week, is the first recorded calf for 20-year-old L82 said Ken Balcomb, executive director of The Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Wa.

It is the second L Pod calf of the season, but L47..., the other mom, has not had any of her previous four calves survive,

"This one is doing well so far, so we hope this will break the pattern,"

http://www...