L pod!  Transients?  L pod?  Transients!

It was a confusing day with orcas today.  With L pod having been spotted the day before in Haro Strait, when orcas were first seen off the Southern end of San Juan Island everyone assumed it was the Residents again.  The whale watch fleet was deployed, as were the various researchers, to spend time with our famed orcas.  What a surprise it was then, especially to me since I had just informed our boat load of guests all about the local pods...

Today we departed Friday Harbor having heard word a gray whale was passing right on through the San Juan Channel! This was exciting news, because not is it a relatively uncommon event to see a gray whale in the waters around the San Juan Islands, it is even more unusual for a gray whale to pass by Friday Harbor.
With extra time on our hands, we left the harbor, stopped on by O'Neill Island and saw some bald eagles and passed by Speiden Island to view some exotic deer and sheep...

It is GORGEOUS here this morning. We will be pulling away from the docks at 1:00 from now until October 2.  June 12 starts our additional "Sunset Orca Whale Watching Tour" at 5:30 pm. At that time of the year it stays light until 10 PM.

No official orca report YET today, but J pod of orca whales have been in the area recently, so we are feeling pretty good about today's tour.

Stay tuned for the naturalists report this evening. Over and out for now, Colleen

We had a last minute private charter today. I was scheduled to laminate, type and answer phones from 8am to 5pm, when in the middle of the afternoon, a man called wanting to charter the boat. His family from Denmark had been delayed an extra week in the states, not able to make it home because of the ash over Europe. The Icelandic that volcano grounded all planes. A lovely family, they enjoyed talking amongst themselves, and translating the stories and facts to their grandmother. The...

All good things must come to an end and this is just about it. Today was our last weekday trip of the season. As of tomorrow, we will only be going out on Saturdays through the month of October and then we will be done for good. Do not despair though, the orcas will be back next season and so will we. In the meantime, here is the address of a blog that is both educational and entertaining and will satisfy your daily hunger for blog sustenance.

http://bitterendblog.com/

It is not...

Luckily, we did not have to look too far today, although the orcas were being a bit cagey. Capt. Craig took us out of Friday Harbor at an exaggeratedly slow speed, because the Coast Guard had sent out a radio warning about a submerged house boat that was adrift in San Juan Channel. How something can be submerged and adrift I do not know, but we were on the lookout for it. That was just the distraction that we needed though. We were nearly to Turn Island and we had not gotten up to...

Once again we turned our bow towards Victoria and Canada today. The orcas, J pod to be exact, were at the Victoria Harbor heading east in a resting pattern. Capt. Craig tried to give them some time to swim to us by stopping to view other wildlife, but the orcas were swimming too slowly and we needed to be making better time. So he jumped on the throttle and away we flew along the south end of San Juan Island and across Haro Strait. There were a few minutes of indecision when an...

It would be easier for me to list the animals that we did not see today, rather than to list the ones that we did. I think that the only sightings that we did not log were of the Titanic and the Loch Ness Monster. Jaclyn and I could hardly contain our excitement, which is to say that we completely abandoned all trappings of professionalism to run around the boat screaming, every time we saw something new. Capt. Craig insured that we saw all that we could today by monitoring the...

Well, I can't tell you what a treat it is to be headed off on a wildlife trip with no hope of seeing orcas and then you get "The Call". For the past two days we have motored up San Juan Channel, swung north around Flattop Island and then been alerted of another boat finding orcas. Yesterday it was transients in Canada, today it was residents at the south end of the island. Both days, we had already informed our guests of the bad news of no orcas, but of our intention to visit the...

Wow! Yesterday (Saturday) was unreal! We were out on a morning tour in Canadian Waters viewing Orcas from J & K pods! It was a stunning morning on the water...a little fog to the south, otherwise clear skies & calm seas all around the islands. Both J & K pods were heading south from the Gulf Islands on their routine swim following salmon through these waters. We had great views as groups of whale would surface to breathe...and we could hear the blows (hot moist air) being...