Lauren | M/V Osprey | Wednesday, April 9th | 2:00 pm
Today was our first tour aboard the M/V Osprey, our largest vessel in the fleet. A fully booked tour on our largest vessel can mean only one thing… Summer is coming! We boarded our eager passengers and headed out of Friday Harbor. We had a report of an animal south of Lopez Island, but with the report being pretty far away, we had no time for prior stops. We cruised south in San Juan Channel and through Cattle Pass, taking looks at the Olympic Peninsula and Cattle Point Lighthouse along the way. We made our way into the Strait of Juan De Fuca and over to the mouth of Rosario Strait. The animal reported was none other than T049C/Neilson, a 27 year-old male Bigg’s Killer Whale.
Neilson usually travels all alone, sometimes linking up with other lone males. As we got on scene we got word from the other captains that Neilson was kelping! A behavior where whales swim into the kelp, often having it trail on their dorsal fin. I often wonder if this serves as some kind of massage? The captains on scene also alerted us that he was zig zagging all over the place, going on long dive times, almost never staying directional. Luckily for us, as soon as we got on scene his behavior started to change. Coming up regularly to the service! We stayed with Neilson as he swam north, often surfacing right under Mount Baker. Thanks for the epic photo opportunity big guy! If only the clouds were cooperating…
We said goodbye to Neilson and started making our way back to San Juan Channel. We did a slow cruise by Whale Rocks, a popular Steller Sea Lion haul out site. We made one more stop at Goose Island, a popular place to see several species of shorebird, and then we made our way back to Friday Harbor.