Helena
MV Osprey
7/6/22
12:30pm
This hump day was filled with beautiful humpback looks along Stuart Island! We began our adventure by turning north up San Juan Channel. Today the water was calm and visibility was great, making for easy scanning along the rocky shorelines and broader horizon. Along the south side of Waldron Island we spotted several Harbor Porpoises taking quick exhalations at the water’s surface. These cetaceans are the second smallest in the world and we typically find these animals in high current areas where we have depth changes and any number of different bodies of water meeting up.
We continued our journey north into Boundary Pass as we scanned for dorsal fins and exhalations along the shoreline of Saturna Island which is actually a Canadian Island! We veered west to take a look at Turn Point Lighthouse on Stuart Island, the most northwestern point in the United States. It was at this time that we got word of a humpback sighting on the southern coast of Stuart! Within minutes we made it to within a half nautical mile of the cetacean, slowing our engines to 7 knots. On scene was “Flier”, a humpback first spotted off the coast of Baja California in 2018. While we do not yet know the sex or exact age of this whale, we have seen it return to the Salish Sea a few times since it was first observed and catalogued. Our waters here in the Salish Sea are feeding grounds for humpbacks, who migrate here for the summer. Some of these fantastically large animals eat up to 3,000 pounds of small school fish and krill every day!! Flier gave us some fantastic dive looks of its dark fluke tail as it trailed very close to the shore of the island.
On our journey home we spotted several Bald Eagles on Spieden Island and Harbor Seals before cruising back to Friday Harbor. Another day of breathtaking nature, wildlife and brief drizzling rain here in the San Juans!