Olivia | M/V Sea Lion | August 21st, 2020 | 17:30

Leaving the dock, we were intensely paying attention to our radios, repeaters, and apps on the whereabouts of the Transient Orca we saw previously on the 13:00 trip. Since the whales can travel over a hundred miles in a day, we don’t ever expect what we see on one trip to be true for the next—but we REALLY wanted to see this family group of Bigg’s Killer Whales. We immediately started heading south (passing multiple Harbor Porpoise)...

Olivia | M/V Sea Lion | August 21st, 2020 | 13:00

What an adventurous morning on M/V Sea Lion braving the weather and circumnavigating San Juan Island! We started the trip with no whale reports, a very common daily occurrence, and decided to head north scanning the wildlife hot spots for any action in the water. We first stopped at the eastern side of Spieden Island where there were THREE Steller’s Sea Lions swimming in the water near the Bull Kelp reef. This was riveting! Not only...

Olivia | M/V Sea Lion | August 15th, 2020 | 17:30

The Transient Orca families we watched on our 13:00 trip traveled too far southeast out of our range to view again, but to our delighted surprise, ANOTHER family group of Bigg’s Killer Whales swam into U.S waters that earlier were milling southeast of Victoria, B.C. Initially, these whales traveled into U.S waters near Lime Kiln Lighthouse and were heading northeast at about 8kts. We made the decision to head north around San Juan...

Olivia | M/V Sea Lion | August 11, 2020 | 13:00

It was an exception treat this morning leaving the dock. We had reports of Bigg’s Killer Whales within our area that swam in quickly from Victoria early this morning. They moved up so far and fast, that leaving the dock they were milling near the south western part of San Juan Island. In order to give our passengers, the best possible opportunity to view Transient Orca, we decided to head straight for this family before they moved too...

Olivia | M/V Kestrel | August 7th, 2020 | 14:00

The Hail Mary works again! Captain Brian and I decided to take a chance and head far south on our afternoon adventure trip in an attempt to see Killer Whales between Whidbey and Camano Islands. This was a long shot as there was no coverage on the whales and we would have to find them ourselves, in addition to going far and pushing our time limits with the four-hour trip. We decided it was worth it to give it our all for our passengers...

Olivia | M/V Kestrel | July 3rd, 2020 | 14:00

It was such a fun day out on the water with Captain Brian-who is also the owner/operator of our family run business. We call our zodiac trips an ‘Adventure Trip’ for a reason; Not only is our zodiac faster than M/V Sea Lion, it is also all exposed. On rainy days like today, it absolutely feels like an adventure as you are braving the Salish Sea and its weather trying to scope out wildlife.

We started off the trip leaving the dock with a...

Olivia | M/V Sea Lion | June 28, 2020 | 13:30

Today as quite the adventure, and a well needed one at that! We started off the trip with the fastest introduction speech of wildlife and the Salish Sea that I have done to date. The reason for the rushed speeches as we set off was because there were whale sightings far away and heading north. Captain Pete was anxious to start our travels as soon as possible in order to give our guests that black and white glimpse they were itching to...

Olivia | M/V Sea Lion | June 28, 2020 | 13:30

Today as quite the adventure, and a well needed one at that! We started off the trip with the fastest introduction speech of wildlife and the Salish Sea that I have done to date. The reason for the rushed speeches as we set off was because there were whale sightings far away and heading north. Captain Pete was anxious to start our travels as soon as possible in order to give our guests that black and white glimpse they were itching to...

Olivia | September 28th, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | 11:00am

Sadly, today was my last Kestrel trip of the season with Captain Gabe and we decided early on that it was going to be epic. Being one of the first boats out on the water, we often must travel into areas where there haven’t been other boats in order to find potential whale sightings. We heard of a Humpback Whale near Battleship Island north of Roche Harbor, but decided to go scope out waters elsewhere due to the amount of boats...

Jordan | M/V Sea Lion | 08/06/19 | 1:30pm

Today started as a gorgeous sunny day without a cloud in the sky, and it just got better. Captain Sarah, Naturalist Laura and I headed out of Friday Harbor and headed north through the San Juan Channel up towards reports of wildlife! But, on the way, we kept finding other random wildlife!

We stopped as we saw a swarm of birds, also known as a bait ball, swirling over a sea lion! It was really cool to briefly see this Steller sea lion pop...