California Sea Lion

A Warm Spring Day of Whale & Wildlife Watching from Friday Harbor, San Juan Island

Today we took off with reports of our resident orcas coming north on the west side of San Juan Island.

We headed out of Friday Harbor going north making a stop at NWR Yellow Island, and rock outcroppings with 43+ snoozing Harbor Seals.   We made our way along the coast of Speiden Island. Often times this is a great place to spot Bald Eagles – no Eagle this time.  But we did...

Breathtaking Wildlife Day From Friday Harbor, San Juan Island

We departed Friday Harbor under clear, sunny, 60-ish degree skies.
Right off the bat, near Shaw Island, Captain Craig found 2 CALIFORNIA Sea Lions hanging out on a bright red buoy. It is not that frequent that we see the California sea lions around here. Off we went heading north. 

Since there have been several transient orca whale sightings in Canadian waters as of late, we felt this was our best chance at whales. A...

Excited by an early morning report that a large number of Orcas had been sighted off Cattle Point on San Juan Island, we could not wait to get out on the water at noon. Heading north in San Juan Channel, our first stop was at Yellow Island to check out a healthy number of Harbor Seals hauled out on the rocks.  Next stop, Green Point at Speiden Island, where more than a few mammoth Stellar Sea Lions dove and rolled on all sides of the boat. Several Harbor Porpoises surfaced long...

     Yesterday Transients Orcas, today Residents Orcas! Traveling all the way to Mouat Point off North Pender Island, Canada, we caught up with members of J and K pod. Although the Orcas kept us on the move, we paused long enough to see foraging, plenty of tail-slapping, a slow-motion spy-hop by Sekiu (K-22), and an excellent full-body breach! It was also a treat to clearly hear vocalizations on our hydrophone.

     A stop at Green Point on Speiden Island on the way home gave us a...

     Exciting first day on the water! Not only were we rewarded with an unseasonably gorgeous, sunny day, but, after 1 ½ hours of getting to the whales (this is very unusual, usually we travel about 30 to 45 minutes), we caught up with approximately 7 Transients traveling in Swainson Channel, just off Salt Spring Island, and with Ganges Harbor in sight. Since transients tend to travel in very small groups, 3 – 5, our sighting today was exceptional.  Also exceptional was the fact that...

No orca whale reports today, BUT as we pulled out of Friday Harbor the Captain received word of a humpback whale by Halibut Island, Canada. It took us nearly an hour to get to the location but there it was – a beautiful humpback whale. It looked as though it was feeding the entire time we were with it – almost ½ an hour. When it dove down, one could see many of the ‘knuckles’ on it’s back.  Two of the many dives it waved it tail gently before disappearing into the water...

  Today with beautiful weather the two Kenmore Air sea planes touched down at the dock and we were there waiting to take the guests for a wildlife tour.  The group included people from Denmark, Sweden and Japan.

We went down the east side of San Juan Island stopping a few times to view birds and harbor seals. We had a good look at a mature bald eagle, solo, at the top of a tree. As we neared the southern-most tip of the island, we stopped (turned off the engine) and sat to watch...

Headed south down the east side of San Juan Island.A single mature bald eagle was spotted up in a tree. We paused to view it, then off it went. We went a bit further south, then stopped a rock outcrop with TONS of Stellars Sea Lions. Lounging, posturing, snoozing, swimming. They where piled up with scads of  cormorants and a variety of gulls. You could smell that these animals were all fish eaters. (Hey, watch it, I kinda like that fragrance!) The boat sat with the engine off and...

Yes, we saw orca whales today on the 2nd of October - late in the whale watching season.  We took off from Friday Harbor, San Juan Island heading north toward Spieden Island.  As we neared Speiden, one of the guests spotted a large brown head which turned out to be a great big stellar sea lion fishing by himself.  We stayed on the south side of Speiden and Shelly spotted a mature bald eagle up in a tree. Down below the Mouflon Sheep and Sitka Deer were roaming about.

We pushed on to...

We only have a few more trips left in our season up here, but the whales don't know that.  Today we found members of our resident pods K and L, almost 50 whales, spread out in Haro Strait heading up to Turn Point.  We were able to identify K20 (possibly with a new calf?  yet to be confirmed), L87, L41, L88, and  K40.  We got to see a wide range of behaviors and all our passengers were very excited.

On the way home we stopped along Spieden and saw many harbor seals on the rocks, as...