Lauren Fritz, M/V Kestrel, 07/19/17, 2:00 pm Tour

Wow! We had quite the epic journey on M/V Kestrel today. Cruising across the bluest seas at our quick speeds really allowed us to make the most of the day. Humpbacks reported down south of Victoria in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, 25 miles away? No problem for the Kestrel! Captain Gabe and I decided to head straight down San Juan Channel and out into the Strait, stopping near Whale Rocks to check out harbor seals, beautiful bull kelp...

[Erick D., M/V Sea Lion, 7/12/17, 1:30PM] Yesterday, Captain Mike, Sarah, and I took a full boat of eager folks out ot search for some whales. Sometimes the whales are a little bit harder to find than other days. Even though whales are massive creatures, even Humpbacks the bigger ones around here pale in comparison to the immense amount of water that they swim in. We headed south through San Juan Channel, out through Cattle Pass, and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The strait is one...

[7/12/17- M/V Kestrel- 2:00PM]

Wednesday’s are hump days, and hump days are meant for humpback whales! It was another beautiful day with sunny skies as we moseyed outside of Friday Harbor from San Juan Island and headed north to Canadian waters. We cruised over the calm waters with no problems at all, simply enjoying the scenery and the windless skies.  We slowed down and approached a small little outcrop of rocks by the East Point lighthouse on Saturna Island, and we saw a plethora...

7/10/17 – Sea Lion 1:30 & 5:30 PM Departure

We spent the day out in Rosario Strait watching one unidentified sub-adult humpback whale.  Guests commonly ask us how we find our whale sightings and if we go to specific areas each day.  San Juan Safaris is a part of the Pacific Whale Watch Association, which is a prestigious company dedicated to ensuring the highest quality ecotourism out in the Salish Sea.  With that comes the variety of whale watching companies leaving from 19...

7/7/17 - Kestrel 2:00 PM Departure

Today we left Friday Harbor at 2pm and couldn’t ask for better reports to start our trip with.  We headed just a bit North inside San Juan channel and came across ‘Divot’, a humpback whale commonly seen in this area.  We watched as he surfaced regularly and displayed consistent dive times.  He also had exceptionally good fluke out dives, with the underside of the tail fully visible. 

We then made our way to the North side of Shaw Island and hung out...

Lauren Fritz, Naturalist, M/V Sea Lion, 6/20/17, 1:30 pm & 5:30 pm tours

Anyone who's around me long enough has fallen victim to my ramblings about how amazing humpback whales are. I spend a significant portion of my year with these whales down in Maui, one of their main breeding grounds, so it's very exciting to see them up here in one of their feeding grounds as well! It's difficult not to marvel over the amazing migration of 2,500-3,000 miles that these whales make every year -...

[06/10/2017 ~ M/V Sea Lion 1200 Departure]

One of the biggest challenges of whale watching is in the name itself: you're watching WHALES. Wild animals, who can travel 100 miles per day easy, who spend the majority of their lives underwater where we can't see them. Untrained, unpredictable, wild animals. This also happens to be the fun of whale watching. You're watching WHALES! Wild whales that are on their own schedule and doing their natural whale behaviors while you just look on in...

[06/07/2017 – M/V Kestrel – 2:00pm]

Today’s M/V Kestrel trip was arguably one of my favorites of the season so far. We had an amazing time with two species of cetaceans and the plentiful other wildlife of the Salish Sea. Leaving Friday Harbor we took a right, heading south, through San Juan Channel towards Cattle Pass to check out some seals and sea lions before continuing on into Haro Strait. The water was glassy and we had multiple reports of whales in the area.

[06/03/2017 - M/V Sea Lion - 12pm]

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You could fill a book with everything that we know about orcas and their social structure. You could also fill a book with everything we don't know about them. Why do they breach? What are they talking about down...

Happy Memorial Day! Today's whale watch and wildlife tour took off just as Friday Harbor's Memorial Day Parade was ending, and our introduction was punctuated by rifle blanks firing and finished up with a canon fire! How much more of an exciting start to a tour could you ask for?

As we turned away from the dock, the sun on our skin and the crystal calm waters stretching below us, we were happy to be notified about a group of transient killer whales moving south off of Point Roberts...