M/V Sea Lion | Naturalist Alexandria | Monday, September 9th, 2019 | 12PM
We had a gorgeous day out on the water today aboard M/V Sea Lion. We all boarded onto M/V Sea Lion and headed north up through San Juan Channel. We had a report of a Humpback whale off of Green Point on Spieden Island. As we worked our way out we got some fantastic looks at Harbor porpoise sprinkled throughout the channel.
It took about thirty minutes to get up to this report, and as we were getting on scene we saw the humpback in the distance surfacing and doing some nice shallow dives. We approached this whale and got to see their flukes on the way down.
After getting a good look at this Humpback we were able to ID them as “Bond.” One noteworthy thing about Bond is that they have a very round dorsal fin which sets them apart from the more the short more pointed dorsal fins that we often see with Humpbacks.
Once we had gotten some amazing looks at this Humpback whale we peeled off of them and headed west checking out the southern side of Spieden Island. Spieden Island has an interesting mix of non-native deer and sheep, brought over in the 1970’s when it was a wild game farm. We got some great looks at these deer and sheep while scanning the hillside. We also got some adorable looks at harbor seals hauled out on the shoreline.
We then headed north and scanned Boundary Pass, seeing what wildlife was out there. Once we had scanned a few of the northern channels we started to head back to Friday Harbor. By this time the sun was out and it was a beautiful sunny afternoon!
Until Next Time,
Naturalist Alexandria