Welcome to the Whale Report Blog

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...

Our guests braved the rough sea's today to get a glimpse of three humpbacks that were traveling along the contour lines of Hein Bank! We headed out from our Friday Harbor location, and out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where the seas got a little rough. Our guests were fully prepared in bright yellow rain slickers and blankets; they were having a lot of fun!

When we got on seen with the three humpbacks we were all happy to see the first one surface just minuets after we got there...

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...

Heading out of Friday Harbor on this gloriously sunny day, passengers and crew aboard the M/V Kittiwake didn't have to go far to meet up with some Minke Whales! Sitting over Salmon Bank we were able to kill the engine and enjoy the silence while waiting for the minkes to surface. Generally a good way to spot Minke Whales is to scan the horizon for birds feeding on bait fish below the surface. Both the Minke whales and the birds are feeding on the same type of fish. Lucky for us, our...

With our 1:30 departure today, Captain Mike decided to head south with our guests, Naturalist Heather and myself. With heading south we were able to see a couple of Steller Sea Lions hanging out around Whale Rocks! Steller Sea Lions are endangered animals and most the time we see males, aka bulls. Bulls can get to nine feet long and weigh up to 1.2 tons!
After seeing the Steller Sea Lions we motored to Salmon Bank to look at Minke whales. Minke whales are known to be very fast whales...

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...

Captain Mike, Naturalist Kevin and myself were lucky enough to show our 1:30 guests and our 5:30 guests a playful K-pod! We departed from Friday Harbor and headed south for both trips to meet with the orcas on the west side of San Juan Island.
Our 1:30 guests were able to see our K-pod members just off of Lime Kiln State Park. We saw several of them breaching and porpoising throughout the water. We had one large male, Lobo, follow us and guests got a great view of the 20 year old...

Blogging is always so much easier as a naturalist when you have amazing trips. I must say, I have been extremely fortunate throughout the 2013 season in having great trips. Tonight was another one of those top five best nights. Our Southern Resident Killer Whales surprised us all, as they usually do, by swimming the (roughly) 90 mile voyage from the western side of Vancouver Is. BC into the northern waters of the Puget Sound. It's not uncommon for Killer Whales to swim 100+ miles a...