[Thursday, 8/9/18, 5:30PM, M/V Sea Lion]
On our sunset tour on Thursday we left with a smaller group to go find some wonderful wildlife later in the day. We headed out during my favorite time during the summer. A few hours before sunset when the sky is turning all golden and orange. M/V Sea Lion took us south through San Juan Channel through Cattle Pass. We took a quick stop to see some Harbor Seals on Whale Rocks. These blubbery friends are the most common marine mammals in the waters of the Salish Sea. They like to lie on the rocks to catch some rest and warm up in the summer sun. We next went a little bit further south over the area known as Salmon Bank.
This is a submerged section of San Juan Island that rises up like an underwater hill. It usually acts a funnel that forces fish towards the surface and closer to shore which allows whales to trap them here when feeding! Here, we saw a Humpback Whale feeding. These mammoth animals are around 40 feet long and over 40 tons. This one was gently swimming and feeding on the plankton and small fish off of salmon bank to the chorus of seabirds.
After watching that giant Humpback Whale for a while we headed further north along the San Juan Island shoreline. When we reached Eagle Point we saw some more blows. They were smaller than the Humpback Whale blow and as we slowly approached we saw that they were orcas (killer whales)! This group or pod was traveling along the shoreline. Orcas are the largest species of dolphin and they also travel in family groups called matrilines since all groups are led by the oldest female! So cool. We watched this group for quite some time until the sun started going down and we returned to Friday Harbor in the orange glow of sunset.
Whale Folks, until next time!
Naturalist Erick
San Juan Safaris