With another beautiful day in the San Juans, Captain Mike, Caitlin, and I were thrilled to have great guests on board the boat and positive reports of resident orcas. Captain Mike steered us north toward the south end of Pender Island in Canada. We encountered a group of about 14 orcas consisting of member of L pod and K pod. These orcas were displaying resting patterns traveling slowing north. We were able to drop the hyrophone in and listen in on their conversations! After...

As the sun beat down on Captain Craig, the guests, and I we enjoyed a cool breeze as we left the harbor. With temperatures near 80 degrees today, everyone was thankful to be out on the water! We were lucky enough to have positive reports of transient orcas in Canadian waters. We arrived on scene near Gooch Island to find about 8 transient orcas milling in a kelp bed. After traveling past Mandarte Island the orcas appeared to find something to eat! While, it all happened under...

With dense fog rolling into Friday Harbor, Captain Mike, the guests, and I headed north toward reports of Resident Orcas in Boundry Pass. The fog made everything very quiet and it was interesting to see the Islands through the wisps. Luckily, once we motored into Boundry Pass, the fog cleared and we were left with blue patches of sky and glassy waters. Once on scene, we were pleased to find that there were a plethora of whales in the area! We first viewed the L-12 matriline, and...

Caitlin, myself, and captain Mike left our Friday Harbor location today to head to the West side of San Juan Island. There is usually only one reason why we head to the West side. Yep, you guessed it! The Southern Resident Killer Whales are back and we were all VERY excited to welcome them home!

A "superpod" is a phenomenon when all 82 Resident Orcas travel together, usually to get to one area- in our case come back into the Salish Sea! Superpod days are always my favorite, and even...

It was a feast today for the T-30's, a group of marine mammal-eating orcas known as the Transient Orcas. The M/V Sea Lion motored out of Friday Harbor with perfectly still seas to meet up with six transient orcas hanging out North near the south side of Saturna Island in Canadian waters. Upon first looks it seemed as if the whales were in their usual foraging patterns, coming up for quick breaths and then going on deeper dives foraging for marine mammals beneath the waters surface...

It's been that kind of summer... Transient Orcas have been everywhere-surfacing in the distance, hunting for seals and porpoise, and giving us close encounters. It's been a little while since we saw Transients out on Middle Bank off the West side of San Juan Island. The M/V Kittiwake and guests went out to find them!

Transient Orcas have been seen much more than any other and we are certainly getting to know their habits and cultures more. The transients we saw today surprised us all...

Long trek to get to the whales today. Earlier reports had transient, our marine mammal-eating orcas, near Captains Pass heading Northeast towards Active Pass. By the time M/V Sea Lion got there from Friday Harbor the whales were at the mouth of Active Pass. Although this was a long trip to the transients, it was also well worth it! Traveling through the Canadian Gulf Islands is always a favorite of our staff and passengers, because of the sheer cliffsides and the narrow passages...

With the sun on our backs, Captain Craig, Naturalist Aimee, and I headed north out of Friday Harbor. Earlier in the morning we had received word of a group of Transient Orcas in the area, and we were eager to catch up to these beautiful animals! We arrived on scene with a trailing group at the south west end of Stuart Island. The trailers consisted of four whales that were traveling north toward Turn Point. At Turn Point we were joined by another group and had at least nine Transient...

Today The M/V Kittiwake wasn't going to let a little thing like distance get in the way of seeing killer whales! Reports had Transient Orcas heading west near Discovery Island off the coast of Victoria, Canada. It was going to be quite the trek to get to these whales, but Captain Jim is never one to pass up on a challenge. On our way to the scene, we were able to spot some Harbor Seals, Harbor Porpoises, and even two Minke Whales. All this wildlife along the way would have made for...

M/V Sea Lion, Captain Craig, Naturalist Andrew and myself had a busy day out on the water! With a full boat on our 1:30 trip we ventured north to avoid the fog down south. Heading north turned out well because we were able to see some Harbor Porpoises along the way! We ran into a small group but in this group were little ones. Andrew and I believe that we were looking at some juvenile porpoises. On the way down to the Orcas it started to rain, but that didn't stop our guests from...