7/10/17 – Sea Lion 1:30 & 5:30 PM Departure
We spent the day out in Rosario Strait watching one unidentified sub-adult humpback whale. Guests commonly ask us how we find our whale sightings and if we go to specific areas each day. San Juan Safaris is a part of the Pacific Whale Watch Association, which is a prestigious company dedicated to ensuring the highest quality ecotourism out in the Salish Sea. With that comes the variety of whale watching companies leaving from 19 different ports in Washington State and British Columbia, that will all communicate about what animals they are watching and what location they are located in. We don’t have airplane spotters or a scouting boat, all of our sightings are all by word of mouth with the PWWA. Every single day out on the water is different, we never go the same exact route twice. There are certain areas where baleen whales will feed more regularly, but we go to where the reports are first. Today we headed East towards Anacortes where we had received reports of a humpback whale. On our way to the whale sighting we stopped at an active bald eagle’s nest on the Northern tip of Lopez Island. We saw the mating pair that inhabits the island and in the afternoon we also saw a juvenile inside the nest. We got to Rosario Strait where we watched the whale diving irregularly and fluking very regularly, which was a great treat! On our evening trip we even got surprised when the whale surfaced about 10 feet from the bow of our boat. It was an exciting event for everyone! We hope all of our guests enjoyed the ability to see this magnificent whale, especially since this species only started showing back up in this area about 13 years ago.
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