What a day we had on M/V Kestrel! Captain Gabe and I were very excited to hit the water with our trip this beautiful Monday afternoon! We started out with confirmed reports of Resident Orcas on the West Side of San Juan Island- so we were very optimistic about it being a great trip from the get go!
As we headed south down San Juan Channel we stopped and checked out some incredible Steller Sea Lions who were hauled out on the rocks growling, swimming and putting on quite the show for us! This is one of the first weeks these Steller Sea Lions have ben back in the are and what a great time we have had since they’ve been back! There is never a lack of entertainment with these guys!
We headed north up San Juan Island slightly, and were quickly with Onyx- a large male orca! We found Onyx so we were lucky enough to enjoy some quality time with him before heading up to the large group of orcas further north.
After we spent a great deal of time with all the orcas sprinkled throughout the west side we decided it would be a great opportunity to circumnavigate San Juan Island! We headed north up the rest of the west side and across the top of San Juan Island, stopping briefly to check outs some gorgeous views of Roche Harbor and their beautiful changing leaves that we had been talking about earlier during the trip!
After a beautiful rest of the trip we returned back to San Juan Island and basked at some amazing views we had from the afternoon! To top it off we even got lot’s of sunshine on this beautiful Autumn day!
Until Next Time,
Naturalist Alexandria