Saturday September 6th was a great day on the water. M/V Sea lion, captain, crew, and guests enjoyed the sunny weather and calm seas on the south west side of San Juan Island today. The resident (salmon-eating) orcas seem to still be finding food here in the Salish Sea and were back in full force. We had reports of all three pods in the area (J, K, and L)! We spent most of our afternoon with what seemed to be a mixture of K and L pods, with some close looks at K21 and L44 both mature...

It was an eventful day today with our resident whales along the westside of San Juan Island. We were greeted by both members of K Pod and L Pod for our afternoon trip on the M/V Sea Lion. We first met up with these whales at Battleship Island and then followed them north towards Turn Point Lighthouse on Stuart Island. I always love being able to see them at Turn Point because Mt. Baker, the lighthouse, and the whales, will occasionally line up perfectly for the ultimate whale...

Woo! After a few days without our residents I was feeling a little separation anxiety from them. Not that our whale watches haven't been awesome with the transients but I was missing the regular residents. As we headed out on our 5:30pm sunset whale watch we heard the reports that a mixture of J, K, and L pods were heading our way from Victoria! The whales booked it our way and we caught up with them around Eagle Point and traveled north with them all the way past Lime Kiln to...

Today we arrived at the M/V Sea Lion with a report of Resident orcas traveling quickly to the southwest. Naturalist Aimee, Captain Pete and I consulted and decided that we would try to catch up with them! Orcas can swim over 100 miles in a single day and can reach speeds in excess of 35 miles per hour. We had a great group on board today who were very excited to be out on the water. We all were hoping that the orcas stayed close enough so that we could catch up with them!

On the way...

Leaving Friday Harbor, Captain Mike, Kevin, passengers aboard M/V Sea Lion, and myself headed south towards the Westside of San Juan Island for both our afternoon and evening trip. On both of these trips we met up with a subgroup of L pod. Same as yesterday, it was Wave Walker, L-88, that stole the show! Wave Walker has a very distinctive saddle patch that helps in identifying this 20 year old male. He wasn't alone though, he was joined up with L-84, Nyssa, and the L-54's, who...

Its been a prolific past 9 days marred by only been 1 day whale-less day. We've been blessed by humpbacks, transient orcas and resident orcas. For the past few days we've seen the easily identifiable T-40. Transient male dorsal fins can get up to 6 ft. tall and T-40 is all male. Born in 1961, the tip of his dorsal fin is dropping with age. It creates a natural umbrella handle or hook. Over the past few days he has been traveling with 2 companions, possibly both females or juvenile...