Jordan | July 1, 2018 | M/V Kestrel | 10:00 trip

 The morning was a not-so-sunny morning as the drizzling rain sprinkled across the calm waters of Friday Harbor. Captain Mike and I were excited for the day, nevertheless, and embraced the wetness with open spirits of adventure!

As we headed out, we spotted bald eagles right away! Perched high in a tree, they didn’t seem to mind the rain as they overlooked the harbor. Then Mike caught wind of some whales up in Canada! So, we decided to...

Jordan | June 29, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30 sunset trip

What a lovely sunset tour today! Captain Mike and I set out at 5:30 from Friday Harbor with a fairly decent idea of where we could find orcas!

We received reports of a transient whale pod up in West Sound, so we headed north through the San Juan Channel towards those waters. However, as soon as we grew closer, the whales took off in the opposite direction! Luckily, we were able to catch up and we met the whales in the Upright...

This afternoon the Sea Lion made a long trek up into the Strait of Georgia where we encountered the T65A’s socializing.  We left Friday Harbor with reports of orcas near Point Roberts, not far from the city of Vancouver.  We journeyed our way up to that area and on the way we saw some harbor porpoise.  Once up in the strait we watched the whales as they appeared to be socializing, we even got to see one whale spyhop out of the water.  Because we went such a distance to be able to see...

Jordan | June 26, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 1:30 trip

Another lovely day began with leaving Friday Harbor at our newly scheduled time of 1:30 pm. Captain Mike, Naturalist Erick and I headed south through the San Juan Channel and past Cattle Pass.

A group of giant Steller sealions were crawling high up on the rocks at Whale Rocks and then jumping off into the water, making a huge splash! There were also some harbor seals down on the lower rocks near the waters edge. Due to the seals bone...

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...

Captain Mike, our excited guests, and I took off down the San Juan Channel on a peaceful Saturday afternoon. Firstly, Captain Mike went through the inside of Turn Island and came out at a harbor seal haul out to observe some seals who happened to have some pups with them! We then continued down the channel and as we approached Cattle Pass, with surprisingly calm waters, we saw some sea lions posted up on Whale rocks. Some of these sea lions were busy cooling off in the water and...

Captain Pete and I were on our second trip of the day ready to be out on the water during the golden hour and hopefully encounter some animals! With very excited guests, we headed up North to see if we could find the same orcas we were with during our day trip. Apparently, these guys were covering lots of ground and moving North quick. We were worried that they would get away from us but decided to go up that way regardless. We were hopeful that we would get a good look at them...

Jordan | June 22, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00 noon

What an amazing day out on the water! Captain Mike, Naturalist Rachel and I voyaged out of Friday Harbor towards a report of whales traveling along the east side of Lopez Island. We traveled north up the Upright channel where we saw two bald eagles perching in trees near their giant nest! It was very cool to see this pair, mated for life, nestled within the huge trees that they called home.

We then traveled down the east side of...

Jordan | June 21, 2018 | M/V Kestrel | 2:00

The day boasted a brilliant sunshine but also a bombardment of wind. And with wind comes waves which made today quite the adventure! Captain Mike took our boat up north through the San Juan Channel to Boundary Pass in between Waldron and Stuart islands.  

Off of Turn Point on Stuart we found a group of Bigg’s orca whales! In fact, we caught these T65As amidst a hunting session! Diving erratically and swimming all around through the huge...

Jordan | June 20, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30 sunset

Captain Pete, Alexandria and I journeyed out of Friday Harbor for the 5:30 sunset tour on our quest to find the whales! The M/V Sea Lion headed north up the San Juan Channel, through the Spieden Channel to the West coast of Henry Island.

Here we found a group of Southern Resident orca whales! In fact, J pod was having a wonderful time scanning the shoreline for their salmon. We watched the whales jump and spy hop and slap the water...