[7/29/30- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 5:30PM]
The group of passengers on today’s M/V Sea Lion sunset trip were bumped up to Level Expert Whale Watchers, because they sighted their own whale that no one had seen all day! We do not use sonar or fancy equipment to find whales and other wildlife in the sea when we are on our trips, so we need everyone putting their eyes to the water and looking for cool animals. Today’s group did just that!
We were headed from Friday Harbor on San Juan Island to go north past Roche Harbor and down towards Canada and Little D’Arcy Island. A humpback that had been seen earlier in the day had made its way down there, and we were determined to find it again. Just around the bend past Roche, however, someone shouted, “WHALE!!” We turned, and after a few moments, sure enough! There was a tall humpback exhale above the water against the setting sun reflecting on the water. After contacting other vessels on the water, everyone was unsure about whether or not this was the whale we had been searching for. But, as we got closer and had some better looks, we saw the whale take a deep dive and show the underside of its fluke (which is like a humpback whale’s fingerprint marking)- and holy smokes, it was a new whale with a new fluke print!
The whale was headed north, bringing us back the way we came. No one had known this whale was in the area all day, which sounds like a surprise, but we also have to remind ourselves that finding a whale in a big ocean can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Teamwork from passengers and other vessels help us locate these whales, and we couldn’t be happier to have been the first to find a new whale, today!