Laura C. | 7/13/2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30 pm
This evening’s whale watch was so much fun! Our captain Pete manned the helm as we ventured south towards Whidbey Island to find a gray whale!! It was so exciting to see such a beautiful whale on a sunset trip! Gray whales sift through the ocean floor in search of benthic invertebrates, a primary food source. This leviathan was solo today and showed us his/her fluke multiple times right before heading down on a dive! We aren’t always so lucky to see gray whales fluking with a sunset skyline, so this was quite a treat!
We were able to stay with this whale for quite a while and appreciate his/her natural behavior patterns. At one point this rotund baleen whale rotated and fluked right towards our boat! After we said our goodbyes, we traveled to nearby islands to view some harbor seals through Thatcher Pass. There were plenty of harbor seals basking along the rocks today and were accompanied by numerous double crested cormorants! We also had some bald eagles in the area and were able to maneuver our vessel within close proximity to an individual perched along a branch with stoic grace. This evening was a beautiful voyage in the Salish Sea and it was great to see so much diversity of marine wildlife!