With eager guests, Captain Jim and myself departed on M/V Kittiwake. As soon as we got out of the harbor area, our guests were scanning the tree line for Bald Eagles. We got to Turn Island and guests spotted two Bald Eagles sitting on tree branches close to the water. The guest that spotted the Bald Eagles was celebrating his birthday!
We headed to the south, toward Hein Bank. We had reports the J-pod was spaced out and as soon as we got closer we could see this was true. We spotted a group of three whales and as we were getting closer, guests on board got to see one whale breach three times! Once down there, we had a group of three close to us and other groups further away. Soon we learned we had most of J-Pod heading our way. We saw a mother, Polaris, and her daughter, Star, swim right next to one another.
Our last view was of a group of whales off our stern. This group included two large males, Blackberry and Doublestuff, and their family. This group swam very close together and provided us with a great viewing of four of them. They would surface together and guests got to see all four dorsal fins come up together! I love when we see large groups surface together, seeing all the dorsal fins come up together is just spectacular. On our way home our guests got to witness a "man" over board drill, but instead of man over board we did a balloon over board drill. We always want to keep our wildlife safe so when we see ballons or plastic bags in the water we will pick them up.
Aimee-naturalist, M/V Kittiwake
San Juan Safaris