With the grey clouds clearing Captain Mike, Tyler, the guests, and I left Friday Harbor heading north towards Speiden Channel. Just off the south west end of Speiden Island, we encountered a Humpback Whale mother and her calf! Humpbacks are sometimes spotted in the Salish Sea during their migration north. The San Juans provide a nice protected area for these huge travelers to pass though.

A short way a way, in the Haro Straight off of Sydney Island in Canada, we ran into two...

Great day on the water! After searching around for a bit, Captain Mike, Naturalist Andrew, and myself, caught a lucky break when we found 2 humpbacks over Eastern bank. These two seemed to be keeping close the the contours of the bank. This behavior could reflect their feeding strategies. Commonly, humpbacks will forage over continental shelves and sea mounts where productivity of krill is highest. Once the krill is spotted, Humpbacks have a really cool and unusual technique to catch...