Laura / M/V Sea Lion / 5/20/2022 / 12:30PM
This afternoon was the first hint of summer in the Salish Sea! We headed northbound on M/V Sea Lion and had our first bald eagle encounter of the day near the Cactus Islands. We slowly cruised through this area soaking up the blue skies and sunshine and calm green water. The channels were all combining in this area, creating a whirlpool effect. Our harbor seals moved in and out of the kelp beds and hoisted their bodies on nearby rocks to add one more beautiful element to this view. It was such a serene yet fun start of our trip, we were all excited to continue north to see what else we could find.
We made our way towards the Haro Strait and found humpbacks Big Mama and her new calf foraging near Gooch and Moresby Islands! Big Mama has been seen frequently in these waters over the past few weeks, and she seems to have set up shop in this general zone for the past several days. The calf stayed close to mom for most of the trip, but at one point Big Mama went up ahead to forage closer to Moresby while the calf stayed behind and rolled around on the surface. It seemed as though he was just entertaining himself and played around on the surface of the water while his mom went to dive for forage fish. We were lucky to see Big Mama’s fluke a few times on dive sequences, and the calf attempted to follow suit not far behind. It was a beautiful whale watch and I had such a great time meeting everyone on our tour!