Southbound from Friday Harbor, we went in search of Pacific northwest wildlife. Along the way, we saw harbor porpoises just in the San Juan Channel north of the harbor. A few harbor seals were spotted frolicking in the waves, perhaps foraging or playing. As we rounded Henry Island along the northern end of San Juan Island, we headed south along the Haro Strait and began to see boats in the distance spread out over several miles. Upon closer viewing, those boats happened to have numerous southern resident killer whales around them! We saw some orcas tail slapping or tail lobbing and one even tail slapping on its back! At one point, we had a large male swimming straight for us! We pulled forward to give him some space and eventually he turned towards another boat; was this a curious whale investigating his surroundings? Over the radio we heard that we were seeing a mixture of J and K pods. On our return trip, we passed by Cattle Point and saw countless sea birds including cormorants, gulls, rhinoceros auklets, pigeon guillemots and rare heermanns gulls. Whale rocks had harbor seals warming up and drying off with some playing in the water. And to top it off, we found an eagle perched on a branch just south of the harbor and we were fortunate enough to see it leap off and take flight!
Serena, Naturalist
San Juan Safaris