Jordan | M/V Sea Lion | 06/21/19 | 12:00pm

The sun shone high in the sky on this lovely Friday in Friday Harbor! Almost immediately, the crew received reports of whales not too far away, so everyone got really excited.

Captain Pete, Naturalist Erin and I took our vessel, the Sea Lion, out of the harbor and headed south through the San Juan Channel. Passing between San Juan and Lopez, we boated past Cattle Point lighthouse, a beautiful southern point to our island. Then, we turned...

Laura C. | 6-20-2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30 pm

Our second trip on the 5:30 whale watch was spectacular!  We headed north and found T124As traveling right around Saturna Island!  The water was glass calm and as we were the only vessel in the area, the surrounding waters were quite peaceful!  We passed a couple of bald eagles perched on a surrounding rock formation and even spotted a juvenile bald eagle!  The calf of the T124A family was quite active and we were able to see most of the...

Laura C.| 6-20-19 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00pm

What a spectacular day out on the water!  We traveled south through San Juan Channel towards Cattle Point and our first marine mammal encounters consisted of Steller’s sea lions!  It was so exciting to get some up close and personal looks at these charismatic creatures basking in the sun and jumping in and out of the cool water.  There were a couple of massive males present on the rocks as well!  These sea lions were quite active today and...

Piper | Wednesday, June 19, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00 PM

Today was a bit of a blustery day in the Salish Sea, but Captain Gabe, Laura, and I had an awesome group of folks on the Sea Lion and we headed north into San Juan Channel on the lookout for all sorts of wildlife! There was a report of a lone male Bigg’s killer whale in Canadian waters so we headed that way and spied a bald eagle in the trees on Spieden Island and some harbor porpoises nearby!

We arrived on scene shortly...

Naturalist Alexandria | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00 PM | June 18th, 2019

Today was a great day on the water!  We started out the day with a report of Bigg’s Killer Whales off Waldron Island.  We decided to head north to go check out these reports.

Today was a pretty windy day out on the water so we were happy to hear that conditions were calmer through San Juan Channel and up to Boundary Pass where these whales were spotted.  This was great news because based on the wind trends we had...

Jordan | M/V Sea Lion | 06/17/19 | 12:00pm

What an unbelievably special day out on the water! The sun was shining brightly in the sky and filled everyone with excitement immediately. Captain Erick, naturalist Piper and I took our largest boat, the M/V Sealion out of Friday harbor towards promising prospects up north. We went up through the San Juan Channel, past Flattop Island and into Boundary Pass.

With Canada in the distance, we spotted our whales off the north point of Stuart...

Piper | Sunday, June 16, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00 PM

Happy Father’s Day! Today the M/V Sea Lion was crewed by Captain Erick, Erin, and me and we left Friday Harbor with a really awesome group of people who were super engaged and asked some awesome questions about the conservation and ecology of wildlife out in the Salish Sea. We headed north and traveled really far up past Boundary Pass and up Swanson Channel to check out a lone male Bigg’s killer whale, T77A.

T77A, also known as...

Laura | Saturday June 15, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 12pm/ 5:30pm

Today was a wonderful day out on the water aboard M/V Sea Lion!  We first found a large congregation of harbor seals hauled out along the rocks of the east side of Flat Top, one of the nearby islands along the San Juan Channel.  Some of these seals were jumping in the water and a few came close by our vessel to check out the passenger!  The seas were so calm today we were able to view a bunch of jellyfish looking down from...

Erin | M/V Sea Lion | Friday, June 14, 2019 | 12:00 PM

What a fantastic afternoon out in the Salish Sea! It began with humpback whales directly outside of Friday Harbor. We headed a couple of minutes south before seeing two humpback whales. They were diving at the same time and coming up to the surface at the same time. We got to see both of their flukes come up out of the water, and the whales were identified as Heather and Raptor, who are two female humpback whales. After seeing...

M/V Kestrel | 11:00 AM | Naturalist Alexandria | June 14th, 2019

What a fantastic day today turned out to be!  We loaded onto M/V Kestrel, excited for the day ahead!  We met Captain Gabe down on the dock and eagerly boarded onto the vessel.  As we headed out we didn’t have any firms reports to go off of, but Captain Gabe had heard a rumor over the radio of a family of orcas that was spotted off the West Side of San Juan Island.

We headed south down San Juan Channel to see if we...