Captain Pete, naturalist Alexandria and myself and were taking off for our second trip of the day along with our joyful guests that were ready to be out on the water. We had heard some other boats had found a humpback on the West side of San Juan and were hoping to get a look at it on this trip. We headed up the San Juan Channel as the wind started to pick up and cause the waters to get a little choppy. As we rounded the northern tip of San Juan Island we were able to get a close...

Captain Pete and I were taking off for our second trip of the day along with a handful of cheerful guests. We had been with some transient orcas earlier today who had swum out of our reach for our sunset trip, so we were hoping to find a humpback hanging out nearby. We headed down the San Juan Channel as the wind started to pick up and cause the waters to get a bit choppy. Once we reached Whale Rocks, we had to stop and say hi to our Steller Sea lions who seem to have chosen to...

It was a beautiful morning on the San Juan’s, starting to finally feel like summer! Sun shining and not too breezy! We had an excited crew on board and Captain Gabe along with naturalist Jordan and I were headed south down the San Juan Channel to go look for some orcas we heard were hanging out on the west side of San Juan. Talk was that this was Jpod (one of the southern resident orca pods) I had not seen them since September of 2017 and I was giddy about getting to see my favorite...

Thursday, April 19, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00 Noon

THE SUN IS OUT! Spending the winter on the island, sometimes you don’t realize how much you’ve been missing the sun until it pops through the clouds to warm your bones; today was one of those days. Happily squinting my eyes, I boarded the boat along with our amazing guests for the day and Captain Brian and I got the Sea Lion into San Juan Channel, headed north. Turning west into Spieden Channel we found ourselves surrounded by our...

09/14/17 – M/V Sea Lion – 12 PM

M/V Sea Lion left Friday Harbor today with a group of bright-eyed guests and reports of two humpback whales just beyond San Juan Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Heading south down San Juan Channel, several shy harbor porpoises quickly surfaced just beyond our wake. These cute little cetaceans get 5 to 6 feet long and only weigh up to 200 pounds. So tiny!

As we made our way past Cattle Point, the southern-most point of San Juan Island, and into...

[Tuesday, May 30th ~ 12pm Departure, M/V Sea Lion]

Scientists love to speculate as to why whales breach. Some say it's a social behavior, on par with an excited exclamation or a loud "hey!" When there's no other whales around, we like to mention that whales can generally hear about 10 miles away, so potentially they are still communicating with a distant associate. Some argue that breaching is a nice way to itch themselves, and they'll use that impact of the water to dislodge...

Today Captain Brian and I had a lovely charter of three people on our newest vessel M/V Kestrel. This boat is pure fun, reaching speeds of up to 35 knots. Today was an ideal day for Kestrel: smooth water, sunny skies and whales in the area!

This summer has been interesting for our Southern Resident Killer Whales. They are specialists, meaning they focus mainly on one food source. Our Southern Residents focus mainly on Chinook salmon… actually 80% of their diet is comprised of this...

We left the dock today with reports of two killer whales just off of the west coast of San Juan Island. We headed north initially and rounded the top of the island before turning south into Haro Strait. We picked up some nice waves at that point, hopping over three-footers caused by the tide and the wind moving in opposite directions. After the equivalent of a splash mountain ride later, we arrived on scene to calming seas and two adult male transient killer whales riding the tide...

A new paper has come out indicating that Orcas’ evolution has been partially driven by culture. There are ten ecotypes worldwide. They each have different prey, look a little bit different, but most importantly their behavior differs between each ecotype as well. This stems from the fact that many of their behaviors are learned behaviors including hunting methods, communication, and socialization activities. The distinct ecotypes have developed different forms of a lot of these...

Orcas, Killer Whales, Blackfish, Sea Pandas – the species scientifically labeled Orcinus orca is known by many names, and they are probably one of the most distinctive looking mammals in the sea. Although these large, intelligent, black and white dolphins look a lot different than you or me, you’d be surprised how similar we and they are… but first let’s talk about an awesome day.

            It was one of the sunniest and clearest days that I’ve seen this spring as we left...