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...

Jordan | M/V Sea Lion | 06/13/19 | 12:00pm

Today started as a beautiful day in Friday Harbor! The sun was shining, and it truly felt like one of the first real summer day here in the San Juan Islands. Captain Sarah, Naturalist Erick, Naturalist Laura and I took our beautiful boat, the Sea Lion, out for a day of adventure! We were incredibly lucky to hear multiple reports of whales. So, we set out to find whales, excited for what the day had to offer.

We headed northeast through...

Laura | June 12, 2019 | Sea Lion | 12:00

Today we had a fantastic day out on the water on M/V Sea Lion!  We departed Friday Harbor heading out to San Juan channel and were lucky enough to find Bigg’s killer whales not far from shore! 

The family pod consisted of Sidney T123A, Stanley T123B, Lucky T123C, and a young calf T123D whose name will be up and coming!  We spent a perfect amount of time with this family as they cruised around the area and showed off their impressive blows or...

Naturalist Alexandria | M/V Sea Lion | June 11, 2019 | 5:30 PM

What an awesome evening tour we had today!  We were with orcas earlier today for our noon tour, but had heard on the radio once we got back that the orcas we were had headed out of the area by the time we were ready for our sunset trip.  This is always possible, one time of day for a trip isn’t better than the other, but our whales here can swim over 100 miles in one day, so it is always possible that we have them for one...

Olivia | June 11, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00pm

What a gorgeous day on the water! Not only did we have an incredibly warm day nearing 76 degrees, but it was also extremely clear! All the back drops for our photos were pristine with sharp mountain views and clear blue skies. We started the trip heading north through San Juan Channel, past Spieden Island, and over near Point Disney where we saw our family of Bigg’s Killer Whales. This was such a fun group to watch as there were lots of...

Naturalist Alexandria | M/v Sea Lion | June 10th, 2019  | 12:00 PM

What an amazing day we had today out on the water!  We started our trip out with no firm reports, though Captain Gabe had heard on the radio the possibility of a Humpback up north, so we decided to head that way to see what we could find.  

As we started our way north up San Juan Channel we were treated to a friendly harbor seal that was swimming by our boat.  He seemed to almost be posing got us as he swam along.  We...

Naturalist Alexandria | M/V Sea Lion | Sunday, June 9th

Today was a great day!  We all met up at the office and got our group of 14 together for this trip.  It was an awesome mix of people, and though we are coast guard approved for 49 people we only had 14 people on board so everyone had ample space to move around and enjoy making it feel like they were on their own boat to some extent. 

As we hit the water we started heading out, making a left hand turn and working our way up north...