It was a beautiful morning on the San Juan’s, starting to finally feel like summer! Sun shining and not too breezy! We had an excited crew on board and Captain Gabe along with naturalist Jordan and I were headed south down the San Juan Channel to go look for some orcas we heard were hanging out on the west side of San Juan. Talk was that this was Jpod (one of the southern resident orca pods) I had not seen them since September of 2017 and I was giddy about getting to see my favorite whales today! What we ended up encountering this day was way more than I could have ever imagined! It was smooth sailing down the channel and as we rounded the southern tip of San Juan we could see some boats up ahead. We headed up the west side of San Juan hugging the coast and spotted a big bull ahead! As we slowly headed towards him keeping our distance, we saw a group of females foraging up ahead of him farther north. I was delighted to be able to see these whales once again and so thankful they were enjoying being back on San Juan waters! We watched them breach and tail slap and be very playful with one another, also very curious about the boats.. They seem to keep trying to come near us as we kept backing farther away to keep our distance and avoid disturbing them. Finally, they came too close for us to move and we turned our motor off not knowing what would happen next. I don’t think any of us would have ever guessed they would choose our boat to surface next to; a group of about 5 came up right under our vow and playfully turned in the water, tail slapped, and stared straight at us! One of them was even hovering on the water and checking us out! This was so incredible that a couple of guests, and of course myself, were screaming out of joy and excitement! This type of encounter is so unique and doesn’t happen all the time. It was really a treat to see Jpod for the first time in so long and have them come feet away from us just to say hello! These are the times that make you realize they are just as curious about us as we are about them! I hope they found lots of salmon that day and decide to stick around this summer.
Mariana, Naturalist, San Juan Safaris