Sarah | 10/28/2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00pm
We had an amazing fall day on the water on Sunday’s trip. With a varied weather forecast we weren’t sure what we’d get out on the water, but for the most part we were treated to sun and beautiful cloudscapes. Captain Mike and I decided to head north out of Friday Harbor on the search for wildlife, as other boats in the whale watching fleet left their docks as well. This is an incredibly valuable network of communication that allows us to see the greatest amount of wildlife each day. There are no secrets out on the water when it comes to wildlife!
We enjoyed a lovely cruise north looking for all sorts of wildlife, getting great looks at harbor seals, Steller’s sea lions, bald eagles, and several great species of sea birds. We worked our way up into the Strait of Georgia, before Mike got a radio call that a boat just to the south of us had seen a blow, or whale’s exhalation, over the surface of the water. As we turned back south we spotted our own whale just to the north of Patos Island. As we approached we realized that we had a humpback whale, surfacing in the tiderip around the historic lighthouse on shore. As we looked for the humpback, we got another call from the other boat: they had found a group of killer whales! We decided to leave the very slippery humpback whale and headed over to see some orcas.
As we got out first looks at the whales, we quickly realized that we had the T123 family of Bigg’s killer whales. This family has the distinction of having the youngest calf in our waterway right now! T123D is approximately three weeks old, and is one of the cutest creatures I have ever seen. We got great looks at this little munchkin, as well as its mother T123 “Sidney”, and siblings T123A “Stanley” and T123C “Lucky.” It is always such a pleasure to see these new babies and get to follow their growth through the years!