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...

Jordan | June 29, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30 sunset trip

What a lovely sunset tour today! Captain Mike and I set out at 5:30 from Friday Harbor with a fairly decent idea of where we could find orcas!

We received reports of a transient whale pod up in West Sound, so we headed north through the San Juan Channel towards those waters. However, as soon as we grew closer, the whales took off in the opposite direction! Luckily, we were able to catch up and we met the whales in the Upright...

Naturalist Sarah | 06/29/2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:30pm Charter from Roche Harbor

Naturalist Piper, Captain Pete and I had distinct pleasure of hosting a family reunion aboard the M/V Sea Lion. On private charters we can always customize the day to best suite a group’s needs, and yesterday that meant moving the M/V Sea Lion up to Roche Harbor for a departure! We gathered our very excited group, talked a little bit about the wildlife in the area, and then departed the harbor. We shot...

Today we got to see a group of transient orca whales just north of San Juan Island.  On our way out of Friday Harbor we got a look at a swimming juvenile Steller’s sea lion.  We then continued to head out of the Harbor and went into Presidents channel where we came across the T137’s.  When we first got on scene the whales were all spread out and foraging for any tasty mammal snacks.  We watched as the whales were spread out but surfaced in unison.  We then got to see them alternate...

This afternoon the Sea Lion made a long trek up into the Strait of Georgia where we encountered the T65A’s socializing.  We left Friday Harbor with reports of orcas near Point Roberts, not far from the city of Vancouver.  We journeyed our way up to that area and on the way we saw some harbor porpoise.  Once up in the strait we watched the whales as they appeared to be socializing, we even got to see one whale spyhop out of the water.  Because we went such a distance to be able to see...

[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...

Jordan | June 26, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 1:30 trip

Another lovely day began with leaving Friday Harbor at our newly scheduled time of 1:30 pm. Captain Mike, Naturalist Erick and I headed south through the San Juan Channel and past Cattle Pass.

A group of giant Steller sealions were crawling high up on the rocks at Whale Rocks and then jumping off into the water, making a huge splash! There were also some harbor seals down on the lower rocks near the waters edge. Due to the seals bone...

Captain Pete and I were taking off for our second trip of the day along with a handful of cheerful guests. We had been with some transient orcas earlier today who had swum out of our reach for our sunset trip, so we were hoping to find a humpback hanging out nearby. We headed down the San Juan Channel as the wind started to pick up and cause the waters to get a bit choppy. Once we reached Whale Rocks, we had to stop and say hi to our Steller Sea lions who seem to have chosen to...