Welcome to the Whale Report Blog

Today we left Friday Harbor with a full boat of eager passengers who were determined to see some Orcas, and L Pod did not let them down! Captain Mike, Naturalist Andrew, and myself, did not have to go far to encounter L Pod stretched out along south end of San Juan Island. We stayed with a subgroup of L Pod hanging around Salmon Bank for the majority of the trip. This proved to be an excellent decision when a group of females and juvenile males repeatedly displayed breaches, tail...

We headed South today from our Friday Harbor location and into the San Juan Channel where we promptly had to do a "man overboard" drill to retrieve one of our customers hats! The hat flew off and into the water, at which point Captain Mike swiftly turned the boat around and Caitlin and I retrieved the water-logged hat! Sometimes, we start out with a little excitement right in the very beginning! We'll always go out of our way to make sure we still have smiling faces aboard!

After the...

Today was a great day for watching our mammal hunting transient killer whales! We left our Friday Harbor location in hopes of encountering these majestic whales along the way and were pleased when we found them! The stakes were high, I had already seen this same small pod of transients kill a harbor seal days before and hoped this trip would be just as good; I wasn't let down! These whales seemed to be on a course of their own as they surfaced about 3 feet from our boat and proceeded...

Today we headed to the south end of San Juan Island with some fabulous guests, many from foreign countries such as Japan, Germany, and even Australia! We were happy to see such diversity on board today. As we headed through the San Juan Channel, we were all excited to see our Dall's Porpoise having a grand old time ridding the waves off of our stern and bow! Both myself and Emily (the other naturalist on board) had never seen these small mammals and were equally excited to witness...

Working on a tip from other whale watching boats, Captain Mike, Naturalists Andrew and Heather, and a hopeful crew, departed the Friday Harbor docks and set course for the northeast tip of Orcas Island. I made it known to our guests that we were embarking on a unique cruise. The majority of the time, the M/V “Sea Lion” explores the west side of the San Juan Islands, as the southern resident killer whale pods are known to focus their activity there. But two days ago, the resident...

Captain Mike, Andrew and myself left our Friday Harbor location today and headed south through the San Juan Channel and into Cattle Pass where we hoped to encounter some great whale activity. Along the way we stopped to say "hello" to my favorite small critters that are known to inhabit the Salish Sea: Harbor Seals. The harbor seals thrive on our large tidal difference here which create the upwellings they navigate through to hunt. Their whiskers on the front of their face are...

Today the Sea Lion departed at 1:30 with Captain Mike, Naturalist Kevin, and myself. We traveled south to Cattle Point and along the way we encountered some friendly Harbor Seals. We spotted a group of ten of them with there heads peaking out of the water on our port side. Then we also spotted a group of six curious seals looking at our boat, on our starboard side. Traveling onward to the west side of San Juan we first spotted Orcas just south of Lime Kiln Lighthouse. We got a...

Unlike yesterdays tumultuous seas, it was a rather pleasant day on the water. The sun came out, and was quickly followed by sightings of J Pod. Soon after heading north out of Friday Harbor, we met up with Granny of J Pod, near Open Bay. Captain Mike, Naturalist Kevin, Naturalist Heather, and myself stuck around to watch Granny for a bit, but she was foraging at a brisk pace so we decided to check out some of her more playful family members further south.
Once we got closer, we were...

Our guests braved high seas today as we crossed the exposed Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca in search of the not-so-elusive killer whale. Lately the endangered southern resident population of killer whales have been following their relatively predictable summer activity of salmon fishing on the west side of the San Juan Islands.

We first encountered these whales south of Victoria. Despite the high wind and confused sea state, J and L pod were grouped tightly and displaying resting...

The day started off great! As we headed out into the San Juan Channel, Captain Mike, Naturalist Kevin and myself along with our eager guest came across our local Harbor Seals feeding in the amazing tidal rips that develop in the Cattle Pass area. We saw close to a hundred Harbor Seals!

From there, we heading out through Cattle Pass were we encountered at least a half dozen Minke whales. Minke whales are approximately 25-30 feet long and feed in the shallower waters off the south end...