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...

After 2 days of howling wind and sporadic downpours it seemed as though mother nature deicded to give us a break.  It was a beautiful day.  There was sun and there were whales.  We even saw a Minke  surface as we were watching Steller's Sea Lions at the south end of Cattle Pass.

When we got to the residents the whales were spread out on the south/ west side of the island.  They looked to be moving a little bit offshore but were generally milling when we arrived.  The first whale we...

Another fabulous day.

Our first stop was for a few Harbor Seals hauled out on the rocks.  Our second stop was for the ever elusive Harbor Porpoise.  It was one of the few times that I have seen a large number of them, too preoccupied while hunting, to care that we were watching.  Most of the time all we see is a little black blip at the surface and have to spend the next several minutes trying to convince passengers that the blip was actually a porpoise.  Today everyone got to see...

Resident Orca Whale by Guest David Paris September 20, 2011

 

Ode to the Orca

In a colossal embrace matter melted with music

Orgasms of fantasy and light.
It was so that the breath of the goddess took form,
Her chants crystallized in an ocean with twilights instead of waves,
Mask of the unknown,
Uterus of the first spawned orca.

The aeons pre-universe elapsed nurturing her gestation

and it was only when she was fully grown that time could born
for the sun is just a mirage of her...

I feel like we have had a lot of great trips this summer and have been luck so far in September with a fairly high percentage of whale sightings.  Of all the trips we have had since we started in April there are a handful that stick out vividly in my memory as exceptional.  Today might have trumped them all.

The one nice thing about this cloudy weather is that it is glassy, flat, and the flat light makes for easy spotting. We left the harbor today and headed north.  Half way up the...

I thought yesterday was one of the calmest days we have seen this season, but I was wrong.  It was today.  We found some Orcas outside of Cattle Pass towards Hein Bank.  The first animal we got a good look at was L41.  He was generally traveling South, but not with any speed.  So we had some fun times hanging out with him.

After a little bit we headed farther north and came across a lot more of L41's family.  They seemed to be mostly milling and resting, but after about 10 minutes of...

Despite the chilly weather and gray skies today was another amazing day.  Whales were down south of Salmon Bank.  On our journey south we saw the usual (yet always exciting) seals, sea lions and harbor porpoise.  Once we were out in the straight we had an unexpected encounter with 2 little minke whales (and 2 more in the distance).  After the wonderful surprise Minke sighting we pressed on even farther south.  The whales were headed south and west.  The first two residents we came...