[Sarah – 04/22/2018 – Earth Day – M/V Kestrel – 12:00pm]
Sunny Spring days were made for M/V Kestrel! Speeding through rocky islands at water level under beautiful clear blue skies after a long grey winter is near to the top of my list of favorite things in the whole wide world. Captain Brian and I were so excited for Sunday’s cruise, and to share the Salish Sea’s wildlife with all of our guests!
We left Friday Harbor and headed north, opting to weave through the Wasp Islands as we worked our way towards the Canadian Gulf Islands. We paused for a moment by Jones Island to check out some harbor seals hauled out on a waterline reef. These small pinnipeds are our most common marine mammals in the Salish Sea. On our excursions we can see these seals everywhere from the middle of the large straits to the protected rocky shorelines. After checking in with our spotting network we elected to keep pressing North up into Boundary Pass. We scanned and scanned the open water looking for any signs of whales: splashing or blows… nothing.
We made our way to East Point on Saturna Island, crossing the Canadian Border mid-way through the Pass. At Boiling Reef we found a group of Steller’s sea lions on the rocky outcropping surrounded by thousands of tiny Bonaparte’s gulls. Right now both of these species are drawn to the nutrient-rich waters right off the rocks before they head north on their migrations for each of their breeding seasons. The sea lions form breeding colonies on the rocky shores of Alaska and northern British Columbia, while the Bonaparte’s gulls are one of the only species of gull to nest in trees, preferring boreal forests.
We pushed even further north into the Strait of Georgia, and we got a call over the radio… a humpback whale! The humongous animal was just north of us out in the middle of the waterway. We found the whale as it fluked-up on a dive. The next time the whale surfaced it lifted its enormous pectoral fin into the air and slapped it down on the surface over and over and over again! This behavior, known as “pec slapping,” is thought to be communication or even a play behavior. As the whale dove again, I was able to get a picture of the unique pattern on the underside of its tail flukes to identify it as BCX1193 ZigZag… each humpback whale can be identified in this way!
