First of all Happy Canada Day Everyone! Woo and what a Canada Day it has been. Capt. Mike, Brendan, and I left Friday Harbor with a super fun group and a very sunny day. There were some reports of Killer Whales a little south of Discovery Island, which is just off the southern tip of Vancouver Island. So despite what people tell you it the temperature doesn't immediately drop ten degrees when we cross into Canadian waters, but I so try to start saying units in  metric though. We soon...

One of my favorite things about Humpback Whales is that they are far less illusive and hard to track down than Killer Whales. Particularly this time of year the Southern Resident pods are farther afield in search of Salmon but some Transients tend to stay near shore year-round hunting marine mammals. The challenge is finding them, in their small groups, is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Thankfully Humpacks are a little different, 40 ton, 50 plus foot long needles, with 30...

Today Captain Mike, Naturalist Caitlin and I had a trip that we all agreed was the highlight of our season. We left Friday Harbor at 12:00pm and immediately stumbled across some harbor seals hauled out on some rocks. The seals need to lay in the sun to warm up as they have a very minimal layer of insulating fat known as blubber. With another stop to check out some nesting double-crested cormorants and some gulls, we headed out to find a minke whale on a glassy Haro Strait. We caught...

This morning we had early reports of the K14s traveling along the west side of San Juan Island. We had a morning trip and were excited to get going. Captain Jim took myself and our guests south in order to encounter the orcas. Along the way our guests were able to enjoy Harbor Seals and Northern Sea Lions! Once we got to the Orcas, guests were able to see an adult male and a young male swimming side by side! It appeared as though this family group was just traveling and searching for...

We had fantastic weather and wildlife viewing today aboard our afternoon M/V Sea Lion trip.  We found our resident orcas, humpbacks, minkes, stellar sea lions, and even a tufted puffin! We headed to Salmon Bank and found J pod cruising the waters looking for food and were even lucky enough to witness some mating behaviors, and followed them along the west side of San Juan Island.  After an incredible show from J pod we came across a mom and calf humpback whale, and the calf was...

July 6th was an epic day here in the San Juan Islands! The afternoon trip was glorious as we headed to the reports of the southern residents and we spotted a humpback whale! We got a few awesome looks and got to see some sweet fluke up dives. We caught up with Jpod near Stuart Island. We got to see J2 Granny our 103 year old whale and L 87 Onyx who spends most of his time with Jpod. This was a great start to the day!

The evening trip was rocking too! We headed west this time and ran...

Today we headed south out the San Juan Channel, into Cattle Pass and out to Salmon Bank. It was sunny and beautiful for fall! Along the way we had some great looks at harbor porpoise, harbor seals and even some steller sea lions. The marine mammals were all foraging in the strong tidal currants that stirred the fish making it easier for them to catch them! When we got out to Salmon Bank we came across a mike whale. We spent a while with this guy who was taking us in every which...

What a day, I don't even know where to begin on this blog! Today was one of those days (we seem to have those quite frequently) where you just couldn't look anywhere without seeing something cool! We had a whale "Trifecta" day where we saw a Minke Whale, Humpback Whale, and Orcas! It was incredible. We no sooner got done looking at our Humpback (which decided to surface literally three feet from our boat) and we had another whale to look at! I think our major problem today was...

As soon as the radio in the wheel house was turned on, there was all sorts of chatter about Orcas milling at False Bay! Captain Mike took Caitlin, the guests, and I around the south end of the island through San Juan Channel and into the Haro Strait in order to see the Orcas. On the way, we encountered Harbor Seals playing in the currents and a Stellar Sea Lion perched majestically on Whale Rocks. While in transit to the Orcas, we also received rumors of a Minke Whale at Salmon Bank...

The M/V Kittywake left Friday Harbor this afternoon in search of an elusive Minke out in Griffin Bay! We soon caught up with the small whale feeding on sand lance, krill, and small schools of herring right off of San Juan Island. The Minke gave us lots of great views surfacing many times, giving our guests some great photography moments. It's always a great day when we start off seeing whales ten minuets into our trip!

After we left the Minke Whale to continue foraging, we saw some...