Elle | M/V Osprey | 9/25/2022 | 12:30PM
Today on our vessel, M/V Osprey, we headed south to search for a humpback whale. As we headed down San Juan Channel, we got some quick looks at five-foot harbor porpoises on both sides of our boat. In Cattle Pass, right next to Cattle Point Lighthouse, Goose Island is home to a colony of double-crested cormorants. These diving birds have built stick-nests where they lay their eggs and hatch their chicks. We headed down past the southern tip of San Juan Island, and swooped across some under water hills called banks before we found the rumored humpback. Even though we stayed one quarter mile off shore to avoid a wildlife protection zone, we got a great show by this humpback, and so did the beachgoers at Eagle Cove Beach and South Beach. This whale was playing and feeding along shore and doing a whole lot of splashing. After having a fun encounter with this whale, we headed back towards Cattle Pass. Across from the lighthouse, at Whale Rocks, we encountered a "bachelor pad" of male Steller's Sea Lions. These boys stuck around while the rest of their population migrated north to Alaska, and we feel super lucky that we got to see them all summer!