Jordan | M/V Sea Lion | 04/17/2021 |1:00pm

What a fantastic day! It started off incredibly warm and sunny as the bright blue sky promised a great trip no matter what we ended up seeing.

Captain Pete and I jumped on the Sea Lion with our excited guests and boated out towards sea. Heading up the San Juan Channel, we passed Shaw and Orcas Islands and rounded the northern coastline of San Juan. Continuing back around, we headed south down the Haro Strait.

We started to see boats in the...

M/V Sea Lion| Sunday, October 13th, 2019 | Naturalist Alexandria

What a full day we had today!  With fall in full swing here on San Juan Island, it sure turned out to be the perfect fall day! The sunshine was out as we departed on our trip aboard M/V Sea Lion and we had already heard of a report of orcas in Rosario Strait!

We headed out of Friday Harbor and aimed towards that report.  On our way we were lucky enough to see some Harbor porpoise swimming by us, these critters are...

Jordan | M/V Kestrel | 08/13/19 |

Todays trips were amazing!

It all started as Gabe and I headed south down through the San Juan Channel. We boated towards Cattle Pass and saw the beautiful lighthouse off the southern tip of San Juan.

We then stopped by Whale Rocks and watched a bunch of sea lions! These massive animals lumbered around the island and barked at each other! It was so cool to watch them walking around and sleeping in the sun. So glad that these Steller sea lions are...

Laura C. | M/V Sea Lion | 8/6/2019 | 5:30pm

Our evening wildlife cruise aboard M/V Sea Lion was spectacular!  We all anxiously made our way out of Friday Harbor as quickly as possible because we heard reports of orcas traveling south from Boundary Pass to Stewart Island!!  It is so exciting to hear of whales traveling so close to home!  On our way north we made a quick pit stop to see a splashing Stellar sea lion in full feeding mode around a bait ball!  The birds were the first...

Jordan | M/V Sea Lion | 07/28/19 | 1:30pm

Today was magical! So many exciting things happened.

Captain Sarah and I headed out of Friday Harbor, down the San Juan Channel and towards Cattle Point.

We stopped by this small island called Whale Rocks and found some Steller sea lions! I was incredibly excited to see these huge marine mammals because they’ve been up in Alaska for their mating season for most of the summer! They lumbered around the island as their harbor seal cousins...

Erin | M/V Sea Lion | Friday, June 14, 2019 | 12:00 PM

What a fantastic afternoon out in the Salish Sea! It began with humpback whales directly outside of Friday Harbor. We headed a couple of minutes south before seeing two humpback whales. They were diving at the same time and coming up to the surface at the same time. We got to see both of their flukes come up out of the water, and the whales were identified as Heather and Raptor, who are two female humpback whales. After seeing...

M/V Kestrel | 11:00 AM | Naturalist Alexandria | June 14th, 2019

What a fantastic day today turned out to be!  We loaded onto M/V Kestrel, excited for the day ahead!  We met Captain Gabe down on the dock and eagerly boarded onto the vessel.  As we headed out we didn’t have any firms reports to go off of, but Captain Gabe had heard a rumor over the radio of a family of orcas that was spotted off the West Side of San Juan Island.

We headed south down San Juan Channel to see if we...

color:black">Erin | M/V Sea Lion | Sunday, May 26, 2019 | 12:00 PM

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start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;
text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px"> font-family:">What a fantastic trip we had on a beautifully sunny day! It began with harbor porpoises. These tiny toothed whales were travelling through President Channel as we made our way to where there were some orca reports. Everyone was excited to see them. As we travelled into the area where we knew there were some orcas, it took us some time to figure out where they were. Then we saw tall blows and tall dorsal fins in the...

Erin | Monday, May 20, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00 p.m.

Today was incredible. It began with some sightings of harbor seals as we departed from Friday Harbor. They were swimming through the water as we cruised past them. We travelled north toward President Channel, and we saw some harbor porpoises and harbor seals along the way. Everybody became quite good at spotting harbor porpoises as the trip went on. Their small, chocolate chip-shaped dorsal fins became stars of the show at...

August 24- M/V Kestrel- 10:00 am

We left the dock at Friday Harbor and East towards a report of a few transient orcas near Anacortes.  As we cruised along we kept an eye out for some other wildlife and came across some harbor porpoise and a bald eagle. We made it to the report of orcas on the North side of Cypress Island. It was the sibling pair of T65A3, who is 11 years old, and T65A4, who is 7 years old.  These two siblings have been hanging out on their own for a few days.  This...