We didn’t have to go too far to see amazing wildlife today! We started out of Friday Harbor heading North through San Juan Channel, making our way through Spring Pass in between Jones Island and Orcas Island. We got really great views of a bald eagle resting in an exposed dead tree surrounded by beautiful red Madrona’s. We continued North to search around a known harbor seal haul out spot, hoping to find the top predators that eat them (hint hint). The seals were nestled low on the rocks with the tide marks, undisturbed by our guests loving their round, large puppy-like eyes.
Captain Michael started to hear some chatter on the radio about whales moving North through San Juan Channel right behind us! We turned Osprey M/V around and slowly moved back South to see if we could catch some looks at these animals. Sure enough, we were not disappointed! Coming up the channel were the “Butcher Boys” (lovingly named that by the whale watching community here on San Juan Island) T049A2 “Jude” and T065A3 “Amira”, both 15-year-old males. Normally male orcas will stay with their mothers in their family pod, but these two teenagers have been spending some time off on their own recently. The whales were traveling close to the San Juan Island shoreline, giving our guests a great example of just how close to shore they can actually travel. We left the whales continuing North and headed back to Friday Harbor just in time to miss the rain.