Yesterday, Captain Pete, Sarah Cutting, and I set off on a classic Pacific Northwest day full of low hanging clouds, mist scarping the trees, and that filtered light that makes all the green in western Washington sing. We started off north and scooted by Flattop Island to look at some Harbor Seals lounging on the rocks and swimming in the kelp beds around this federally protected island. Next we headed further north towards Saturna Island in Canada, right where two major waterways...

Sometimes we forget that when going on a whale watch we are observing wild animals, in their natural habitat, performing their natural behaviors. This is what makes whale watches so exciting and unique, but it is also an added challenge. Every day our trips are dictated by the movement and whereabouts of wild animals, and seeing how orcas can travel up to 100 miles a day, each morning we start out with a blank slate and a large sea of potential.

Today’s trip brought us as far north...

There are two ecotypes of killer whales that inhabit the Salish Sea throughout the year – the transients and the residents. Killer whale ecotypes are both genetically and behaviorally distinct, meaning they don’t interbreed, they have different behaviors, they speak different languages, and they look slightly different. The main distinguisher between transient and resident killer whales is their feeding habits. While transient killer whales feed on marine mammals, resident killer...

On Friday we went up north! We started our daily search for cetaceans by heading up near Flattop Island to both look at some Harbor Seals and Bald Eagles on this Federally protected island and also look in several different channels to see if any whales could be spotted. None yet so we headed east now through one of my favorite channels in the islands, President Channel! It runs between Orcas and Waldron Island so our journey east was framed by steep wooded slopes on Orcas and...

A new paper has come out indicating that Orcas’ evolution has been partially driven by culture. There are ten ecotypes worldwide. They each have different prey, look a little bit different, but most importantly their behavior differs between each ecotype as well. This stems from the fact that many of their behaviors are learned behaviors including hunting methods, communication, and socialization activities. The distinct ecotypes have developed different forms of a lot of these...

I don’t know if y’all remember the ‘90’s but I sure do. The biggest thing and maybe one of the more unfortunate things that I do remember are, of course, frosted tips. You probably remember these and have a general idea about how they are engineered into hair. You may even no be experiencing a wave of nostalgia as an NSYNC song plays in your head. But what you probably don’t know is that some marine mammals are still really into the ‘90’s…

            We started off this Sunday trip...

We pushed off from the dock today with a full boat, feeling chilly but hopeful. It wasn’t long before we got reports of humpbacks in Active Pass within the Southern Gulf Islands in Canada, so we headed north out of Friday Harbor hoping to get a look.

On our way out of San Juan Channel, we got some quick looks at some harbor seals and an adult bald eagle before we crossed into Canadian waters and heard some more good news – the pair of humpbacks we were approaching were Big Mama and...

We started off the day with hopeful reports of a group of transient killer whales just off of Victoria, BC. As we left the dock, we headed south down the San Juan Channel towards Cattle Point, the southernmost tip of San Juan Island. We stopped briefly to catch a look at a large group of harbor seals hauled out on a rocky bank only to realized that on the other side of the rocks was a large group of Steller sea lions, with a few California sea lions dispersed among them. The male...

It’s still not summer. Despite the past unseasonably warm weather, El Niño, and new predictions for this to be a La Niña year, late may has brought some grey weather and some sporadic showers, but great whales! Captain Mike, Alex, Sarah, and I headed south to head to the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to check out the sea mounds over there. Sea mounds are kind of like hills submerged in water, and are great places to find groupings of plankton, tiny fish, bigger fish, and...

I do not take top five lists lightly. If I say a trip is easily in my top five of all time, you can be certain that it is truly special. Today was one of those days.

Captain Mike and I had an amazing day with our guests up in the Strait of Georgia and Boundary Pass watching Bigg’s killer whales and a lovely humpback whale as well! We started the day of encounters with the T123s traveling east in the Strait of Georgia. This family, consisting of three individuals (Mom T123 and kiddos...