Erin | M/V Sea Lion | Monday, July 15, 2019 | 1:30 PM

What an incredible trip aboard the M/V Sea Lion today! The sun was shining and the water was smooth. Not only did we have an amazing boat ride, but we saw an abundance of wildlife! We headed north out of Friday Harbor and went toward Canada. There were some reports of orcas in the Strait of Georgia, so we headed in that direction. As we got to East Point, we saw a humpback whale blow in the distance. The whale went down for a dive...

Piper | Sunday, July 14, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 1:30 PM

On today’s bright, sunny afternoon tour, Captain Pete, Jordan, and I took an awesome boat full of people into the Salish Sea to look for some whales and wildlife! Not very far outside of the marina of Friday Harbor we spotted a gray whale moving north through San Juan Channel! It’s quite rare for us to get gray whales this far north in the Salish Sea; when they are seen here, they’re typically spotted south near Whidbey Island...

Erin | M/V Sea Lion | Saturday, July 13, 2019 | 1:30 PM 

It was a sunny, lovely day in the Salish Sea. We began our day with no whale reports from other vessels in the area, so we went out on a true whale seeking adventure! We headed south out of Friday Harbor toward Cattle Point. On our way to Cattle Point, we got an excellent example of currents and upwelling. There were white caps and eddies right near Cattle Point, and there were birds feeding in the area. They were most likely...

Laura C. | 7/13/2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30 pm

This evening’s whale watch was so much fun!  Our captain Pete manned the helm as we ventured south towards Whidbey Island to find a gray whale!!  It was so exciting to see such a beautiful whale on a sunset trip!  Gray whales sift through the ocean floor in search of benthic invertebrates, a primary food source.   This leviathan was solo today and showed us his/her fluke multiple times right before heading down on a dive!  We aren’t...

Laura C. | 7-12-2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 1:30pm

We had an awesome day aboard M/V Sea Lion!  With bright sunshine, blue skies and calm seas our vessel headed north to Canadian waters!  Suddenly a pair of humpbacks were spotted near North Pender Island!  We saw their exhalations from quite a distance and were thrilled to see fluking from both individuals!  As they brought their tails up towards the sky, a waterfall of saltwater fell over the edge of their flukes and quickly dissipated...

Piper | Thursday, July 11, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30 PM

On this evening’s sunset cruise, we had two really lovely groups of folks visiting the Salish Sea for the first time! The M/V Sea Lion motored out of Friday Harbor and north through San Juan Channel, passing by some wee harbor porpoises and harbor seals swimming along the channel. Our destination was Plumper Sound amongst Canada’s Southern Gulf Islands where a hodgepodge of Bigg’s killer whales were hanging out together!

We...

Jordan | M/V Sea Lion | 07/11/19 | 1:30pm

WOW! Today was unbelievable. We saw so much wildlife, it was fantastic.

Captain Erick, Naturalist Piper and I took our vessel, the Sea Lion out of Friday Harbor and headed up north through the San Juan Channel. We boated all the way up to Boundary Pass near Moresby Island where we saw orca whales!

Here we saw our first pod of orcas identified as the T77s! This group consisted of 5 whales including one of the newest members of the entire...

Olivia | July 9th, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30pm

For our rainy sunset tour, Captain Gabe immediately started heading south past the Cattle Point Lighthouse down into the Strait of Juan de Fuca where we had far away whale sightings from earlier in the day. While he was determined to show our passengers whales, I started handing out rain slickers and heaps of blankets for our hour and 15-minute trek south. While on route, we spotted Harbor Seals and Harbor Porpoises swimming about which...

M/V Sea Lion | July 9th, 2019 | Naturalist Alexandria | 1:30 PM

What a fantastic day this trip ended up being!  We left the dock with reports of orcas on the cusp of our range, and decided that we would go for it!  After checking with all of our friends on board we decided that if we had the chance of seeing orcas today it was absolutely worth the trek!

We headed south into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and worked our way past numerous banks towards where these reports came from.

As we...

Jordan | M/V Sea Lion | 07/08/19 | 1:30pm

What a really fantastic day out on the water! The sun was out but there were clouds in the distance painting the horizon with beautiful puffy whiteness. Captain Gabe, Naturalist Erin and I set out of Friday Harbor on our vessel and headed north through the San Juan Channel to reports of wildlife.

Boating near Waldron Island, we stopped by a place called White Rocks where we found a bunch of harbor seals! There were literally mounds of seals...