M/V Sea Lion | May 11, 2019 | Naturalist Alexandria
What a great day we had today out on the water! Captain Pete, Erick and myself all hit the water with no firm reports of whales, but as we headed north up San Juan Channel we heard of some Humpbacks that had been seen up in Boundary Pass!
We were just passing through Presidents Channel- right off of Orcas Island- and were already headed in the right direction! Along the way we got some good looks at a few harbor porpoise swimming by, though these critters are pretty boat shy so we didn’t end up stopping for them since it was a smaller group.
After we continued through Presidents Channel we stopped by East Point and hung out with some Steller Sea Lions that were all hauled out. These animals are always a crack up to watch- with all their snorting and growling. As many of our guests remarked you could almost smell these animals before you could see them, but they sure were entertaining!
We continued north slightly more, and once we got to Tumbo Island we joined these two Humpbacks as they were surfacing! We got some AMAZING dives from these animals, and so many opportunities to get fantastic pictures of them fluking!
What made today even better was that the length of dives for these two animals was fairly short, only about three to four minutes or so, which made for many awesome views of the whales! At one point we even got some fluke splashed and tail lobs from these two! It made for a truly entertaining day with Humpbacks!
After we got good looks at the undersides of these whales flukes we were able to confirm that they were in fact Heather and Raptor- two Humpbacks that are somewhat of local celebrities since we look forward to seeing them each season!
We spent a nice amount of time with these awesome humpbacks and then started heading back down south enjoying a beautiful sunny day on our way back to Friday Harbor.
Until Next Time,
Naturalist Alexandria