Welcome to the Whale Report Blog

A foggy morning had one ferry very much behind schedule...but no worries....we are on "island time". Lots of Orcas out there today and they were in no rush! Nor were we. On our way out I saw my 1st Stellar Sea Lion of the season! A big male, snorting as he surfaced and exhaled, swimming in Cattle...Read more

"To everything, turn, turn, turn...", so they say and that is true of life here in the San Juan Islands. The indicators are small currently, but the times they are a changing. I saw a second Steller's sea lion in a week today, which means they are starting to wander back down here from Alaska. This...Read more

Residents and Transients We saw resident and transient killer whales today! This almost never happens, transients avoid resident orcas, but today they were about 5 miles from each other. We went north, to Point Roberts. Here we watched resident orcas. We had heard these resident orcas were members...Read more

Residents have returned to our waterways! After 2 days in the Strait and ocean, members of the fish-eating Orca community have made their way back towards San Juan Island. They were just off the south end...moving from Salmon Bank inshore towards Eagle Point and False Bay. The fog was incredibly...Read more

There are two distinct types of orcas that frequent the San Juan Islands, transients and residents. Resident orcas are fish eaters and transients eat marine mammals. Today we saw transients, also known as T’s. The T’s seem to specialize in pinnipeds. They behave differently than the resident orcas...Read more

It was inevitable, but sad all of the same. Tonight was our last evening trip. We did not waste it though and we had a lovely group of guests out with us on the M/V Sea Lion. Even though there were no resident orcas tonight we still saw all kinds of wonderful wildlife. As Capt. Pete toured us...Read more

Boy, for being from Massachusetts, I sure have become acclimated to the Pacific northwest's 75 degree (F) weather! It hits a few degrees above 75 and I'm sweating. This is much to the humor of my guests, many of whom are coming from Texas, Florida (had some folks for Atlanta, Georgia, today), and...Read more

After last week's bit of rain and cooler temps, the temps are back in the high 70s here on the island. A bluebird day and a gorgeous view of Mt. Baker this afternoon just topped off our time with the whales. The L12s and a few other Orcas were out on the west side of San Juan today. The rest of the...Read more