The water looked like glass tonight as we headed out of Friday Harbor in search of the Orcas. Earlier on the afternoon trip we observed K pod just outside of Cattle pass slowly traveling north on the west side of San Juan Island but this evening there were new reports of whales even closer by. We quickly caught up to them as they traveled along Stuart Island. After only a moment of observing this pod I saw that familiar wavy dorsal fin pop up and knew we were in the presence of J-pod. 'Ruffles' one of the adult males has an unmistakable wavy trailing edge to his dorsal fin. The whales travelled along slowly in a tight knit group but a quick glance ahead revealed that there were more whales to be seen.
Captain Craig position our boat off shore parallel to the whales travel but just ahead of the main section of the group so that we could just bask in the warm sun and watch them glide by. We had an amazing view of Mt. Baker in the background and the turn point light house with whales swimming by. After reaching turn point (the most northwestern point in the United States) they became a little more active and we were lucky enough to see several breaches, tail lobbing and a cartwheel or two before heading back home.
-Casey