Olivia | August 19th, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | 3:00pm
We had such an incredible morning trip that reassured us for an epic afternoon one as well! The T49A’s had traveled up and down the channel since we previously viewed them, and this time came right to Friday Harbor! We didn’t even have the chance to speed up and slowly motored under 7kts to go see them. We mentally prepared our passengers for one quick view before we left and came back later, wanting to reduce the number of vessels in the area. To their luck, all but two boats left allowing us time to fully chat about how incredible these large dolphins really are!
We were able to view them as they traveled north of Wasp Islands, even seeing swimming Harbor Seals along the way wondering if anything crazy would play out while we were observing. Slowly backing off from these whales and deciding to finally show our passengers what the zodiac can do, we agreed to head south through San Juan Channel and just west of Salmon Bank to view mum and calf Humpback Whales! They were slowly traveling west along the southern side of San Juan Island, teasing us the entire time as they were zig zagging and barely showing their tail flukes. Whales always surprise us and never cease to entertain.
Following the trail of jumping Pink Salmon and swimming Harbor Seals, we moved over to Whale Rocks to view the Steller’s Sea Lions and Cormorants as they basked in the evening sun. Our passengers were so fun and thrilled on this trip, in addition to all the whales being close by, this turned out to be such an enjoyable day out on the water. Shout out to Captain Gabe for always being incredibly respectful of our wildlife, having an eagle eye for Humpback Whale exhales, and shamelessly telling incredibly terrible whale puns with me on all of our trips!