Okay, well it was actually all of us on the M/V Sea Lion that were doing the rocking and rolling, but I am sure that the orcas were having some fun too.  Especially if all of the breaches by the calf were any indication of their state of mind.  The waters were rough, (unusual for the San Juan Islands), but our guests were tougher and we prevailed in the end.  The orcas were spread all along the south end of San Juan Island in little clusters that were hard to find until we stumbled...

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...

Today we headed north in the San Juan Channel. We had a few sightings of orcas earlier at False Bay on the west side ofSan Juan Island. We were originally considering going south. But as we motored out of Friday Harbor, we heard that the orcas were moving up on the west side of San Juan Island - fast.

So we went north and cruised past the south side of Spieden Island, which is just north of San Juan Island. As we looked for big black dorsal fins or a big blow from the bow of our...

This is a week of firsts, I am telling you. Today we were treated to another rare sighting and that was a Humpback Whale. Even the captain said she has not seen one of these in the waters directly around San Juan Island in two years. The whale did not seem to realize the frenzy that it was causing with the wildlife watching companies. Clearly it was just there to eat and not be a media star. Capt. Nancy, Jeanette and I fell under the whale's spell just like all of our guests on the...