(May 7, 2017)  After a couple of weeks of hanging lefts out of Friday Harbor and heading for Canadian waters to watch transient orca, humpback, grey, and minke whales, it felt strange to bear right and run south in San Juan Channel.  Such a move often signals that our resident killer whale pods have returned to hunt salmon on the west side of the archipelago, and today was no exception.

Before we reached our destination, we stumbled upon a small pod of Dall’s porpoise.  Our...

Today we left Friday Harbor with the exciting report of J pod hanging around the San Juan Islands.  We headed around to the North side of Orcas Island where we saw a few Steller’s Sea Lions swimming around as well as a harbor seal.  We also got some great looks at a pod of harbor porpoise.  Harbor porpoise tend to be a bit shy around boats so it is always exciting when we get excellent look at them from our vessel.  We hugged the North shore of Sucia Island where we saw a bald eagle...

It’s difficult to process the contrast of watching a humpback whale sluggishly swimming along one minute to witnessing it leap from the water like a gigantic trout the next.  When our guests were confronted with this mind-bender north of San Juan Island, expressions oscillated from surprise, to elation, to puzzlement.  Did you see that too?  How does a 50-foot whale clear the surface?  Why did it do that?  So many questions, and so few answers. 

Scientists think breaching behavior...

It’s a bit rainy here today in the Pacific Northwest (good one, right?) but that didn’t stop our guests from being excited and enthusiastic about looking for wildlife.  We left Friday Harbor with no whale reports, not uncommon for this time of year.  We decided to head North toward the Canadian Gulf Islands.  As we were traveling we came across some harbor porpoise in the larger channels.  As we continued along our search route we came across a number of bald eagles, both perched and...

Some days on the water are perfect. I am always amazed by how engaged and open to learning about the Salish Sea our guests can be. Yesterday we had one of those magic, early-spring trips into the wonder-scape of the Canadian Gulf Islands.

Leaving Friday Harbor we headed north towards Spieden Island to find some Steller’s sea lions hauled out at Green Point. The massive animals were sleeping in the warm sun on the rocky outcropping, soaking up some much needed rays. Soon these sea...

Big Mama the humpback whale was spotted fishing with friends just north of the border today.  After marveling at her broad back, knobby head, and impressive blows, we turned around to find another adult and juvenile humpback feeding in the same vicinity.  Humpbacks are solitary beasts, but are known to congregate at productive feeding sites.  Adult whales spend their day gulping about 3,000 pounds of tiny crustaceans or schooling fish, such as sand lance, surf smelt, or herring.  A...

Today I want to write about the foundation of the entire food chain in the Salish Sea as well as all the worlds ocean.  That’s right, I’m talking about plankton!  There are two types of plankton that exist: phytoplankton, tiny plants, and zooplankton, tiny animals.  Because phytoplankton are in fact plants, they are going spend a majority of time at the surface of the water in order to have access to their main food source, the sun.  These animals are going to photosynthesize in...

Today we left Friday Harbor with no immediate reports of whales in the area.  But, as whale and wildlife watching goes, there was ample opportunity for a great day on the water.  As we started heading North to survey for whales we got the report of a humpback whale in Boundary Pass just South of the Canadian Gulf Islands.  As we headed up to that area we saw multiple bald eagles in flight as well as harbor seals and harbor porpoises.  We made it to the area of the reported humpback...

(April 27, 2017) Our guests today were treated to an encounter with “Big Mama,” a school bus-sized member of the baleen whale family.  Just a few decades ago, humpback whales such as Big Mama were on track to becoming locally extinct in the northeast Pacific.  After a moratorium was placed on commercial whaling, several whale species began to recover their populations.  Today there are estimated to be about 20,000 humpbacks in this part of the world.

In some parts of the world...

We left Friday Harbor with reports of transient orcas headed to the South side of San Juan Island.  On our way to the area where the killer whales were seen we saw a variety of wildlife that resides here in the Salish Sea.  We saw quite a few bald eagles both perched and in flight.  We also saw a pod of harbor porpoise swimming in the area as well.  Harbor porpoise are one of the smallest cetaceans and they also tend to be shy around boats.  A surprise sighting during our venture was...