Welcome to the Whale Report Blog

Well, I can't tell you what a treat it is to be headed off on a wildlife trip with no hope of seeing orcas and then you get "The Call". For the past two days we have motored up San Juan Channel, swung north around Flattop Island and then been alerted of another boat finding orcas. Yesterday it was transients in Canada, today it was residents at the south end of the island. Both days, we had already informed our guests of the bad news of no orcas, but of our intention to visit the...

The cloudy day today was more reminiscent of autumn, reminding us that fall is indeed fast approaching - but that didn't stop the whales or guests from enjoying the San Juan Islands in all their glory. But not to fear, I read a weather forecast calling for sunshine (at least during the day) tomorrow, meaning that summer doesn't seem to have left us just yet. What a fantastic summer it's been for whale watching this year and today was not exception!

Captain Craig, Naturalist Jaclyn...

A wonderful end to the month of August....lots of Orcas..J, K, and some L pod members were all traveling together this afternoon! Somewhat of a superpod. (Other members of L pod were at the south end of San Juan Island today). They had been moving along to the north, when we arrived in Swanson Channel, a waterway in the Gulf Islands they were just slowing down and gathering together. We watched a big group with lots of whales all busy socializing! Amongst the group were J26...

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 Pass. I love these guys. A male Stellar can weigh as much as 2000 pounds! Just huge compared to our Harbor Seals which weigh in around 250-300 pounds.

J-pod, one of our 3 pods of...

"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 one was probably another sub-adult male that was not that impressive to the females, so he is back in our waters to work on his physique so that he has more success next year.

These large...

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 of K-pod. As we watched these animals we noticed a big bull. We identified him by his saddle patch, this male was actually L-78, and we also saw L-2. L-2 is actually L-78’s mommy...

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 thick to the south, masking the Orcas, other boats, and even the island in a damp sock of white. Jeannette and I were the lookouts for Captain Craig....this was what I call "extreme whale...

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. They seem to travel in smaller numbers with usually about 3 to 4 animals. Travel more stealth like, vocalizing much less with an estimated 3 to 4 calls, especially when foraging....

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 through the islands, we stopped time and again for harbor seals hauled out on rocks. Of course, there is always a method to Capt. Pete's madness and he was stopping at all of the places...

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 other hot summer spots, who board the boats with jackets in tow. Today was like so many other summer days here in the islands this summer, hot and sunny! Due to what we like to call the "rai...