The fog bank to the west and north of San Juan Island has been challenging the whale watching fleet recently. Shortly after departing the Friday Harbor dock, Captain Craig learned of a minke whale sighting north of Waldron Island. When we caught up with the cetacean it was executing long dives, 5-6 minutes in duration, followed by 3-5 short dives. We finished the trip off by cruising by a national wildlife refuge and the Cactus Islands, where we observed bald eagles and harbor...

The crew and passengers aboard our original San Juan Safaris vessel, the M/V Kittiwake, braved the dense fog bank that awaited us at Cattle Pass in search of earlier reports of humpback whales. At certain points during the trip visibility was as low as 150 yds! Not to worry though, because Captain Jim wasn't going to let that get in the way of seeing humpbacks!

As we motored South, passengers were constantly on the look out for our baleen friends who have traveled great distances to...

The M/V "Sea Lion" again went south from our Friday Harbor docks in hopes of locating minke whales. And again we were rewarded with great views of a very active minke whale. The beast kept lunging for schooling bait fish, flushing up the dense sea bird flocks that were competing for the same food source.

We were lucky to spend several minutes viewing the feeding frenzy before the sea fog moved in, reducing our visibility to an eighth of a mile! The fog was disorienting for all but...

Another great day on the water! M/V Sea Lion didn't have to motor very far in search of whales today since they were coasting along the inside passage of San Juan Island. From Friday Harbor to the whales it only took us 8.4 minutes! Not a bad day for whale watching. Once we met up with the 2 transients, we quickly realized the individual transients were T-21 and T-20, a mother and son pair. T-20 is a mature male who has a very distinctive notch in his dorsal fin. In addition to this...

What an exciting day on the water! For the afternoon and evening trip, we got to hang out with some pretty speedy transient orcas. The afternoon trip started out foggy but Caitlin, Captain Mike, and I had high spirits. We came upon the group of 4 transients south of San Juan Island and they were showing behaviors typical of a hunting pod. Their movements were swift and they spent a considerable amount of time submerged between breaths. Traveling northward toward Lopez Island, the...

It was a beautiful day out on the water today with clear views of Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier, the Olympics and the Cascades! Myself, Caitlin, and Captain Mike were eager to see some wildlife and so were the guests. Heading southward, we got an awesome viewing of several hauled out Harbor Seals on Turn Rock! We made our way around the south end of the island past scenic Cattle Point continued northward along the west side. Here, we were lucky enough to spot 3 members of L-Pod!! It was...

The great weather continued today as Captain Jim, passengers, and I sped up along the west side of San Juan Island to meet up with a few L Pod members. As you might have read in earlier posts, L-22, Spirit, and her two sons, L-79, Skana, and Solstice, L-89, have been consistently found milling along the west side of San Juan this summer. Today was no exception!  They seemed to be the only show in town, since all the boats were out and about, including the University of Washington...

With eager guests, Captain Jim and myself departed on M/V Kittiwake. As soon as we got out of the harbor area, our guests were scanning the tree line for Bald Eagles. We got to Turn Island and guests spotted two Bald Eagles sitting on tree branches close to the water. The guest that spotted the Bald Eagles was celebrating his birthday!
We headed to the south, toward Hein Bank. We had reports the J-pod was spaced out and as soon as we got closer we could see this was true. We spotted...

M/V Kittiwake, guest, Captain Jim, and myself departed Friday Harbor and headed north. Our guests got a great view of the Cactus Islands, Johns Island, and Stuart Island. We caught up with part of J-pod just off of turn point, which marks the most north western point in the U.S. Our guests got great views of the cookie clan, which includes J22-Oreo, J32-Rhapsody, J-34 Doublestuff, J-38 Cookie. This family group was also traveling with another two family groups and our guests were...

Heading north out of Friday Harbor, Captain Craig, Andrew, our eager guests, and I crossed the Canadian boundary line in search of the elusive K Pod. Up until two days ago, K Pod had yet to show their beautiful black and white faces in our region. Once across the boundary line, we met up with a few K Pod members interspersed with J Pod members. It was great to see K Pod out and about!

After we left the group of  J and K Pod, we decided to try our luck a little bit south where we...