The M/V Sea Lion and Kittiwake left Friday Harbor today with great reports of killer whales off the west side of San Juan Island. What was so great about this report you ask? The reports were of one of our resident pods that was thought to have left the night before: K Pod! We have only seen K Pod in this area for the last three days. For over a month now these whales have been MIA, or missing in action. They have finally gotten the memo that the Chinook Salmon, there favorite food...

Arriving at the boat today, Captain Pete informed Rachel and myself that there were reports of part of K-pod in the area! If this was true, this is the first time K-pod has been in this summer. M/V Sea Lion and guests left the docks at 1:30 and motored over to Battleship Island to encounter the orcas. In the lead was a small group of K-pod.

The orcas were very spaced out, but guests got to see several small groups of orcas! We continued to motor north with them and slowing down once...

The M/V Sea Lion left our Friday Harbor location and headed south today, out through Cattle Pass and out to Hein Bank. It had turned into a gorgeous day with sunny skys and calm water. Everyone was happy to be on a boat rather than on land! Along our way to Hein Bank, we came across many steller sea lions! These guy's are just huge, and never cease to amaze me with their size! They were on and along whale rocks fighting, roaring, and some that were just laying in the sun. Yep, they...

Alright so not only our are Southern Resident male orcas in town, but our females too! On both our afternoon and evening trip, guests aboard M/V Sea Lion were swarmed with J, K, and L Pod! Captain Mike had his hands full trying to maintain the designated 200 yds away from the resident orcas when all 82 whales were out and about foraging over Hein Bank. You would think aboard the boat it would be filled with "ooohs and ahhhs" from guests, but infact, it was filled with "Nooo and...

Captain Mike, Naturalist Kevin and myself were lucky enough to show our 1:30 guests and our 5:30 guests a playful K-pod! We departed from Friday Harbor and headed south for both trips to meet with the orcas on the west side of San Juan Island.
Our 1:30 guests were able to see our K-pod members just off of Lime Kiln State Park. We saw several of them breaching and porpoising throughout the water. We had one large male, Lobo, follow us and guests got a great view of the 20 year old...

Heading north out of Friday Harbor, Captain Craig, Andrew, our eager guests, and I crossed the Canadian boundary line in search of the elusive K Pod. Up until two days ago, K Pod had yet to show their beautiful black and white faces in our region. Once across the boundary line, we met up with a few K Pod members interspersed with J Pod members. It was great to see K Pod out and about!

After we left the group of  J and K Pod, we decided to try our luck a little bit south where we...

As we traveled south we had amazing views of Harbor Seals and Steller Sea Lions.  Both species were taking their afternoon siestas, soaking up the sunshine.  Many of the Harbor Seals were resting in a “banana” pose, keeping their head and hind flippers raised out of the frigid, 49°F water.   Whereas, the Steller Sea Lions were sprawled out across the island, making even the most jagged rocks look comfortable.

We then caught up with four Southern Resident Killer Whales near...

The weather was perfect: high around 70 degrees, clear blue sky, and very light breeze.  The only thing that could make it better would be a day with the Orcas.  Did you order up Orcas?

Yes, a large order, please!

Coming right up.

We ran north - through beautifully calm water, enjoying the spectacular scenery.  Mount Baker was a clear and crisp as I've ever seen it.  Along the way, we saw harbor porpoise, common murre, pigeon guillemot, and harbor seals swimming about.

As we...

We had calm seas and a bright sunny day, perfect for wildlife watching! We departed Friday Harbor heading south, stopping to view harbor seals in the water and hauled out, as well as a bald eagle perched high in the tree tops. There were more seals around Goose Island, plus cormorants, gulls, and a large stellar sea lion playing in the bull kelp. Then, around whale rocks we saw three massive male steller sea lions hauled out on the rocks. One even started growling! It was awesome to...

In my post yesterday, I mentioned how I could not find words to describe how amazing our Orca encounter was. Well, surprisingly everything that I said yesterday can be applied to our afternoon trip today! There was another super pod of killer whales, but we didn’t realize this right away.

We departed Friday Harbor heading north, and did not have to travel far. We caught up with three killer whales just on the north side of Henry Island (48°36.720’N 123° 12.300’W). We watched...