Welcome to the Whale Report Blog

What a day!! I really couldn't have asked for a prettier San Juan island afternoon and evening: sunny sky's, warm weather, great people, oh,  and of course killer whales. The M/V Sea Lion met K pod traveling south from Stewart Island. As soon as we got on scene one came out of the water in a full breach!! You just never know what you're going to see when orcas are involved, lucky for us!

We turned the motor off and watched as members of K Pod traveled south, porpoising out of the...

Alright folks, today was the trip of all trips! I absolutely love the southern resident community whales, but I must say that watching the Transients has to be my favorite. You just never know what you will get when you are watching the transient foraging for marine mammals.

The M/V Sea Lion and passengers first encountered T-35 A's and T-75 B's,  along the Eastside of San Juan Island and quickly followed them up towards Canadian waters. For most of the trip they seemed to be moving...

Howdy from a very sunny and warm Friday Harbor!

This afternoon we had an awesome trip out on the Salish Sea. We left the harbor and immediately had a bald eagle fly over our boat, and a little while later we had an eagle fishing right off the bow! Eagles cannot retract their talons once they have sunk them into a fish, so they have to be careful about the size of fish that they attempt to catch. A fish that is too large might pull the eagle under the water, so they are very selective...

July 6th was an epic day here in the San Juan Islands! The afternoon trip was glorious as we headed to the reports of the southern residents and we spotted a humpback whale! We got a few awesome looks and got to see some sweet fluke up dives. We caught up with Jpod near Stuart Island. We got to see J2 Granny our 103 year old whale and L 87 Onyx who spends most of his time with Jpod. This was a great start to the day!

The evening trip was rocking too! We headed west this time and ran...

After the amazing encounters that we had yesterday, I wasn't sure the trip today would be able to compare, but boy was I wrong! When we first headed out, we had an awesome surprise: a  juvenile humpback surface a couple hundred yards in the distance by Roche Harbor. It went about feeding and showing us lovely fluke patterns. The Humpback ended up circumnavigating San Juan Island. These whales can eat up to two ton of food a day! It didn't take us long before the M/V Kittiwake was...

I saw more whales breaching today than any other whale watch I have ever been on!  Just off the southern west side of San Juan Island we were able to witness the super pod greeting ceremony of the southern resident killer whales. This super pod is referring to J , K, and L pods being in one area where they come back together in a place with a high density of food ( chinook salmon) to potentially breed and share knowledge and customs. But what does this mean for a whale watching boat...

The M/V Sea Lion and Kittiwake left Friday Harbor today with great reports of killer whales off the west side of San Juan Island. What was so great about this report you ask? The reports were of one of our resident pods that was thought to have left the night before: K Pod! We have only seen K Pod in this area for the last three days. For over a month now these whales have been MIA, or missing in action. They have finally gotten the memo that the Chinook Salmon, there favorite food...

Today we arrived at the M/V Sea Lion with a report of Resident orcas traveling quickly to the southwest. Naturalist Aimee, Captain Pete and I consulted and decided that we would try to catch up with them! Orcas can swim over 100 miles in a single day and can reach speeds in excess of 35 miles per hour. We had a great group on board today who were very excited to be out on the water. We all were hoping that the orcas stayed close enough so that we could catch up with them!

On the way...

Arriving at the boat today, Captain Pete informed Rachel and myself that there were reports of part of K-pod in the area! If this was true, this is the first time K-pod has been in this summer. M/V Sea Lion and guests left the docks at 1:30 and motored over to Battleship Island to encounter the orcas. In the lead was a small group of K-pod.

The orcas were very spaced out, but guests got to see several small groups of orcas! We continued to motor north with them and slowing down once...

We departed the docks today with sunny skies above. It would seem like every day in the San Juan's is just as beautiful as the next; however, today was clear enough so that we had a panoramic view of the Cascade mountain range with Mt. Baker in the center,  as well as Mt. Rainier and the Olympics. Guests got a spectacular view of these mountains as we headed out through the San Juan Channel and out through cattle Pass. It wasn't long before we started seeing what everyone wanted to...