[Naturalist Erick, M/V Sea Lion, 8/20/17, 1:30PM]

            On Sunday, Captain Mike, Rachel, and I started on another super exciting wildlife and whale tour. We headed east towards some reports of Transient Orcas (the ones that eat marine mammals) and soon spotted them swimming south around Matia Island. It was the T065A’s! This is a pretty spectacular family of Transient Orcas, and one of my favorites. I have seen them hunt so many different prey in so many different ways. They...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Sea Lion, 8/19/17, 5:30PM]

The evening trips aboard the Sea Lion are my absolute favorite. We are coming up on the last week of them, but each time I go on one, it’s just so much more relaxing, there usually are less boats on the water, and less folks on the boat. Oh yeah, and the lighting is just spectacular. This evening we started out by heading north. We stopped at one of our favorite places, Flattop Island, to look at some Harbor Seals, Bald Eagles...

[08/22/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 1:30PM]

Up until about 2002, there hadn’t been any humpback whales seen in the Salish Sea for over 60 years, because they were hunted until they were close to extinction. Since being put on the endangered species list, they have made quite the comeback, and now we are seeing quite a regular population (that’s on the rise!) returning to the San Juan Islands during the summer months when they are feeding. Today, we got a chance to see a...

[08/19/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 1:30PM]

We had quite some luck today! We had some transient, or mammal-eating, orcas juuust off the north end of San Juan Island near Henry Island just as we were departing Friday Harbor. We had them easily within reach, and we decided to take our time to see them by detouring around some of the special islands here in the San Juans.

We first visited Flattop Island, where we spotted bunches of harbor seals hauled out on the shorelines and...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Sea Lion, 8/17/17, 1:30PM]

The weather here in the San Juans has definitely changed for the better. A few days ago the wind shifted and blew the smoky haze away, it rained!, and the temperature cooled down again. On this beautiful, cool, and sunny day Captain Gabe, Rachel, and I all took a full boat on a search for some fun nature!

Bald Eagles

Today we took an inter-island route since there were some whale reports on the other side of the islands. We...

[8/15/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 5:30PM]

Some days, whales are juuuust out of reach from us, and that is okay! We understand that the animals we are searching for are wild, and orcas can actually swim 35 mph and travel up to 100 miles in a day! We always want to see whales, but we also have a great deal of other amazing wildlife that fills these islands in the Salish Sea that we want to share with travelers. We actually have 4 species of baleen whale, 2 species of dolphin...

[Lauren Fritz, M/V Sea Lion, 08/15/17, 1:30 pm Tour]

We saw some rare visitors from Alaska today - the T10's! These animals are most frequently seen up north, but they decided to make a surprise appearance in the Salish Sea this week. There was a female with a large nick near the base of her dorsal fin and one of her large sons, spotted cruising along the Salt Spring shoreline today. They even surprised some campers near the shoreline of one of the provincial parks on the island -...

[8/12/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 1:30PM & 5:30PM]

Some days are just so perfect it doesn’t seem real. And when not one, but TWO trips turn out to be beautifully perfect, it’s a pretty surreal day!

Both trips saw some transient killer whales (or mammal-eating orcas), but there were two separate groups on the same path of travel! In the afternoon, we went south from Friday Harbor to Cattle Point, and there by Whale Rocks were some orcas! We viewed them briefly, and then we...

[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Sea Lion, 8/8/17, 5:30PM]

            Yesterday, Captain Pete and I embarked on a beautiful sunset cruise. It was a beautiful evening. The water as we left Friday Harbor was flat calm and almost looked unreal underneath the orange sunlight of late afternoon. We’ve been having some amazing sunsets with the smoky haze that has covered the islands for a week now. The sun sets as an orange orb each night creating an extraordinary fiery sky.

This is the sky...

[Sarah C. 8/6/17 5:30 Sea Lion]

Smoky skies continue to haunt the San Juans this week, giving us an eerie backdrop to our whale watches. Paired with the setting sun, the persistent smoke makes for an overwhelmingly orange-pink atmosphere that permeates the sea, sky, and wildlife. And while we hope for a prompt resolution to the forest fires in British Columbia, we can't help but observe in awe their effects on our daily sunset whale watches from Friday Harbor.

We left the dock today...