Wednesday, July 4th | M/V Sea Lion

After catching the Friday Harbor 4th of July parade, Captain Pete, naturalist Jordan and I were pumped to get out on the water and see what the day had in store! We boarded the M/V Sea Lion and heard a report of a humpback whale milling about near Lawson Reef on the southeast side of Lopez Island! We made our way south towards Cattle Pass where we found a large haul-out of harbor seals soaking in the sun before the clouds rolled in. Looking down...

Sarah | 07/01/2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 01:30pm

The sun was shining and we had flat water as Captain Mike steered the M/V Sea Lion north out of Friday Harbor towards the Canadian Gulf Islands. We had a lovely and lively group of guests on board ready to find some wildlife!

As we cruised north we stopped to check out some harbor seals hauled out on the rocks around Flattop Island. These little pinnipeds are some of our most common marine mammals in the inland sea, with some population...

Sarah | 06/29/2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 01:30pm

Yesterday’s overcast weather yielded amazing wildlife viewing… with a bit of [much needed] rain falling from the gray skies the islands had that very specific Pacific Northwest magic swirling over them.

Leaving Friday Harbor Captain Mike, Naturalist Jordan, and I elected to head south towards some areas that we’ve had great wildlife sightings lately. Cruising through Griffin Bay we caught views of our two most common marine mammals in the...

Naturalist Sarah | 06/22/2018 | M/V Kestrel | 02:00pm

M/V Kestrel is such an incredible conservation tool and education platform. Every time I am scheduled for a day working on its open air decks I’m excited about the potential for encountering a plethora of wildlife to share with our guests. On Friday it was no exception… we were able to cover a lot of ground and see more wildlife than a conventional whale watch boat in our 3-4 allotted time.

We started our afternoon cruise by...

[Tuesday, 6/27/18 - M/V Sea Lion - 5:30PM - Naturalist Erick]

On Tuesday, Captain Mike and myself were on our own with a smaller group of guests on the sunset tour - aka my favorite tour. We went south through San Juan Channel and Cattle Pass to eventually head towards the southern end of Rosario Strait. We were pointed in this direction to look for a Humpback Whale that we had seen during the afternoon trip. On our way there we stopped at Whale Rocks in Cattle Pass to look at the...

Captain Mike, our excited guests, and I took off down the San Juan Channel on a peaceful Saturday afternoon. Firstly, Captain Mike went through the inside of Turn Island and came out at a harbor seal haul out to observe some seals who happened to have some pups with them! We then continued down the channel and as we approached Cattle Pass, with surprisingly calm waters, we saw some sea lions posted up on Whale rocks. Some of these sea lions were busy cooling off in the water and...

Captain Pete and I were on our second trip of the day ready to be out on the water during the golden hour and hopefully encounter some animals! With very excited guests, we headed up North to see if we could find the same orcas we were with during our day trip. Apparently, these guys were covering lots of ground and moving North quick. We were worried that they would get away from us but decided to go up that way regardless. We were hopeful that we would get a good look at them...

Captain Pete, naturalist Alexandria and I were ready for our day trip on a beautiful and sunny Tuesday. With almost a full boat, the guests and us were ready to see some whales! Captain Gabe had reports of Transient Orcas up near the Gulf Islands in Canada and headed towards us. This group had apparently cruised by Friday Harbor and up the San Juan Channel earlier that morning. It would take us about an hour to get up there, so we headed up the channel with no time to lose. How much...

Jordan | June 20, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30 sunset

Captain Pete, Alexandria and I journeyed out of Friday Harbor for the 5:30 sunset tour on our quest to find the whales! The M/V Sea Lion headed north up the San Juan Channel, through the Spieden Channel to the West coast of Henry Island.

Here we found a group of Southern Resident orca whales! In fact, J pod was having a wonderful time scanning the shoreline for their salmon. We watched the whales jump and spy hop and slap the water...

Today we left Friday Harbor with no reports of whales in the area, which is not an uncommon way to start our day.  Just as we were exiting the harbor we got a report of some transient orcas about 10 minutes away from us.  We came across the T137’s hunting what looked to be like a porpoise.  Things were just getting exciting as we got there with lots of white water and jumping going on.  We then watched the orcas slowly begin to share their food and travel northwest.  We watched as...