You know what people love more than whales? Nothing except more whales and maybe perhaps the idea of autumn as they drown everything in brighter earth tones, sweaters, and pumpkin spice flavoring, but today wasn’t one of those days it was a whale of a day. Captain Mike, myself and Alex headed north to search for the Southern Resident Orcas. We first spotted them around East Point on Saturna Island. This place is one of my favorite in the islands, the current get a little bit crazy...

Today was a tearful one. It was Captain Pete and Naturalist Hannah’s last day this season, but before they left me all alone we had the best day ever. All three of us along with a whole boatful of great humans headed south today. We made it all the way to the Strait of Juan de Fuca to find the orcas. Today it was the Southern Resident Orcas that we were watching. These are the salmon eating orcas and their population is critically endangered. Today we saw two families of J pod. The J...

Some days are just simply spectacular. Today combined flat water, good company, and amazing killer whale sightings for magic on the M/V Sea Lion.

Naturalist Erick, Captain Mike and I set out on our 1:30 pm tour with reports of some of our Southern Resident Killer Whales on the west side of San Juan Island in Haro Strait. We work together with a spotting network, known as the Pacific Whale Watch Association, which is comprised of other whale watch companies spread out all over the...

So Hot, well it’s hot for us. It got all the way up to 80F on land here today, but still pretty cool over the water as we headed towards the west side of San Juan Island again today. We made it to Eagle Cove and started to see those telltale blows over the water. We got closer and it was a very spread out group of K pod and J pod milling and catching fish off the western coast of San Juan Island. Soon though they finished fishing and started to group up a little bit off shore, and it...

Today was another super day in the San Juan Islands. We had perfect summer weather of flat calm water and baby blue skies, and for the third day in a row the Southern Residents were here! They haven’t been around that much since their main food source, Chinook Salmon has been very low this year, but we encountered them around Turn Point on Stuart Island! It was all of J pod together! The J16’s passed and the J2’s passed and we saw some of the males, Onyx and Blackberry swim past as...

Hello, It’s me... again, and yes I’m sorry but not sorry I’m going to talk about salmon and their connection to Southern Resident Orcas again. Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) eat fish and 80% of their diet is one species of fish: Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and yes before you ask they definitely tell the difference. It’s probably not because of their refined palate, but perhaps, it’s more likely due to their incredible echolocation abilities to determine between...

Today Captain Brian and I had a lovely charter of three people on our newest vessel M/V Kestrel. This boat is pure fun, reaching speeds of up to 35 knots. Today was an ideal day for Kestrel: smooth water, sunny skies and whales in the area!

This summer has been interesting for our Southern Resident Killer Whales. They are specialists, meaning they focus mainly on one food source. Our Southern Residents focus mainly on Chinook salmon… actually 80% of their diet is comprised of this...

Yesterday was amazing! The past few days the residents have come back into the Salish Sea and have been traveling up an down the islands foraging for salmon, and we hope they find plenty of them! A great place to find the Southern Residents in the islands is on the west side of San Juan Island which is part of the Haro Strait. The salmon migrate from the Pacific Ocean through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and start to head north, most of them are heading towards the largest river around...

Yesterday, the skies cleared to reveal a wonderfully blue sky with wispy, white clouds. The last few days we have been lucky here. This year has been marked as a historically low salmon year, and for this reason we have not seen the Resident Orcas (whose main food source is salmon) very much in the Salish Sea. This past week J pod of the Residents Orcas has been in and around the islands hunting for salmon. On Sunday, we headed south to arrive on the southern side of the islands to...

Even though May is here in full force and it has felt like summer the past few weeks, it definitely isn’t summer yet. The salmon still haven’t starting running full force through the Salish Sea so it is still unusual to spot the Southern Resident Killer Whale pods. The J-16s have been seen from time to time with other members of J pod, but we believe that this is so they can keep their young calves safe in the more protected waters here. So in this time of the year we usually see...