Laura C. | 11/30/2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00pm

Waking up this morning was bittersweet, as I knew it would be the last trip of the season, but I was equally excited to get out on the water to hopefully see some whales!  Today could not have more perfect, with orcas graciously providing a grand finale!  This is the last blog of the season as it is our final whale watch of the year!  Eleven passengers eagerly boarded M/V Sea Lion and greeted Captain Pete with enthusiasm.  After...

Laura C. | M/V Sea Lion | 11/17/2019 | 12:00 pm

What an exceptional day out on the water!  The Salish Sea was a buffet of small schooling fish swirling through the surrounding cold-water currents.  M/V Sea Lion headed out of Friday Harbor with gusto to stop only minutes away to our fist whale sightings!  The T18s were in the area foraging just north of Friday Harbor!  T19C and T18 were hugging the east side of San Juan Island and T19B and T19 were in San Juan Channel about 300 yards...

Erick | Sunday, November 10, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | Noon

                We’re quickly moving into November and soon it will be the last trip of the year! This Sunday, we received great sunny weather with a slight breeze as we headed out with Capt. Pete at the wheel as well as Sarah and myself along as Naturalists. We headed north towards reports of whales that Brain, the owner of San Juan Safaris and Sarah had found earlier this morning! As we approached Green Point on Spieden...

Laura C.| M/V Sea Lion | 10/27/2019 | 12:00pm

Today was a glorious day out on the water with Captain Sarah!  M/V Sea Lion headed north bound towards Active Pass with rumors in the atmosphere of Bigg’s killer whales!  We were all surprised of how many harbor porpoises were seen along the way!  As we passed Shaw Island, it was obvious how productive the waters were today with a plethora of wildlife to observe.  The swirling currents produced an abundance of phytoplankton for some small...

Naturalist Erick | Sunday, October 13, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | Noon

We couldn’t ask for better fall weather today when Capt. Pete and I took a full group out to go search for wildlife in the Salish Sea.  We started out by heading east through Upright Channel and through the small passage between Obstruction Island and Blakely Island called Peavine Pass. We had heard earlier of reports of some orcas in Rosario Strait and were looking for them. There they were heading north towards...

M/V Kestrel| Saturday, October 12th, 2019 | Naturalist Alexandria

We had a great day on the water today!  As we headed out on M/V Kestrel the day was looking promising!  What had started out as a bit of a gloomy and wet day had dried up, and there was even some sunshine peeking through the clouds! 

We already had reports of orcas a bit west of Victoria, and lucky for us they were heading closer to us!  We knew it was going to be a bit of a trek but we were more than ready for our...

Naturalist Erick | Saturday, October 5, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | Noon

Saturday started in a pretty typical Pacific Northwest way. Rain and low hanging clouds fell and scraped the tops of the evergreen hills of the San Juan Islands. As Capt. Pete and I got ready to take a full boat out to search for the exciting wildlife of the Salish Sea blue skies started to appear and the sun came out! We motored north through San Juan Channel and started our journey at White Rock. Here we saw a...

Piper | Saturday, October 5, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00 PM

Today started out so dreary but by the time we were gathering for our 12:00 Classic trip, the rain dried up and the sun was just starting to peak through the clouds, making for a beautiful day on the water!! Captain Sarah, Jacob, our Kayak Operations Manager, and I took a truly awesome and enthusiastic group of folks out into the Salish Sea today, heading northwest towards a report of Bigg’s killer whales which had been...

Olivia | September 28th, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | 11:00am

Sadly, today was my last Kestrel trip of the season with Captain Gabe and we decided early on that it was going to be epic. Being one of the first boats out on the water, we often must travel into areas where there haven’t been other boats in order to find potential whale sightings. We heard of a Humpback Whale near Battleship Island north of Roche Harbor, but decided to go scope out waters elsewhere due to the amount of boats...

Piper | Friday, September 27, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00 PM

Captain Sarah, Alexandria, and I ventured out into the Salish Sea with a really awesome group of folks and reports of whales swimming about! We headed north into San Juan Channel and when we got to the top of San Juan Island we headed west towards the city of Sidney, BC. Along the way we spotted a few harbor porpoises in the Haro Strait and a haul out of harbor seals on a small Canadian island!

Shortly after passing by...