I was a little worried waking up this morning to overcast skies, but just before leaving on today’s adventure the clouds started to part and the sun shined through. Our luck continued as we circumnavigated San Juan Island. There were tons of harbor seals with little pups in the water and hauled out on rocks. As we went around Cattle Point a bald eagle flew over our boat, giving us one of the best views I’ve seen of one. Just further ahead, we spotted our first killer whale. Then, a...

We headed north out of Friday Harbor this afternoon in search of any and all wildlife that lives in or around the Salish Sea. Our first encounter came when we slowed and went across Spieden Island where there was wildlife from the shore line to the sky. First we noticed harbor seals that were hauled out on the narrow shoreline. Then looking up, we saw mouflon sheep and fallow and sitka deer along the grassy hill tops. Finally, in the sky was a lone bald eagle in all its glory; wings...

Northbound from the harbor, we soon found our dead harbor seal with about five bald eagles sharing its carcass off of Sentinel Island.  Day three of its destruction and the seal still had some meat on it to feed the local raptors.  Onwards around the north end of San Juan Island, we started to see sporadic dorsal fins belonging to harbor porpoises.  Into the Haro Straight, we passed Lime Kiln State Park on the west side of the island.  We were lucky to have sunny weather with...

Today we saw two Transient Orcas way up on the west side of Pender Island.  One of them was a big male with a huge dorsal that we identified as T20.  He had one of the coolest, most unique fins I have seen so far.  With a couple of notches and a port-side lean, his dorsal was easy to ID even from several hundred yards away. The whales were milling, but, overall seemed mostly interested in moving south.

The trip up was Bald Eagle central, with the birds every couple hundred yards all...

Another beautiful day.  That makes wo in a row!

It was calm enough to head south through Cattle Pass and do an entire circumnavigation of San Juan Island.  Whale rocks was packed with Steller Seal Lions,  Harbor Seals, and Cormorants and as we headed out toward the straight, with the wind at our backs, we decided it would be the perfect day to just keep on going.  We made it all the way around to Henry Island and turned out toward Speiden to try to sneak a peek at some land mammals. ...

San Juan Islands and Mount Baker. Photos courtesy of planetware.com

I am envious of those people that can sit down and power out a blog entry everyday and have it be different, interesting and engaging.  I am finding that as the season grows colder, quieter and slower, I am having difficulty finding the necessary inspiration.  Now, I do not want to give the impression that I am bored or that I in some way am not excited to continue to see the orcas every day.  What a gift it is...

We left the harbor without any orca reports.  For about 20 minutes we wondered whether or not we would see our black and white friends today.  As we neared Spieden Island, Captain Craig started to receive reports of whales on the west side of San Juan heading north.  Surprise! This is my first season with San Juan Safaris, and I am almost convinced that I'm the lucky charm.  Either that, or it's the fact that the Fraser River is experiencing one of its biggest salmon runs in almost a...

What a pleasant surprise the gorgeous weather was today.  The sun was shining, it was warm and there were whales! What more could one really ask for? Except for the whales to be headed right in our direction,  and as it turned out they were!!   The plan was to head straight for the whales which were reported to be near Saturna Island just at the border between the United States and  Canada. Captain Craig informed us that we would not be making any stops so that we could make it to...

Okay, well it was actually all of us on the M/V Sea Lion that were doing the rocking and rolling, but I am sure that the orcas were having some fun too.  Especially if all of the breaches by the calf were any indication of their state of mind.  The waters were rough, (unusual for the San Juan Islands), but our guests were tougher and we prevailed in the end.  The orcas were spread all along the south end of San Juan Island in little clusters that were hard to find until we stumbled...

It was a bit of a rocky day out there with 2 foot swells, but it was still a great day!  The Southern Resident L- pod was first spotted off False Bay on the southwest side of the island. The pod was spread out into several smaller groups.  We chose to take a look at a smaller group that seemed to be frolicking in the waves. They picked up speed to porpoise over them. Eventually they moved offshore to slightly calmer waters and milled about.  We continued along the west side of the...