Whale Watching Naturalist with Young Whale Watcher
Today on both of our trips, we encountered J-pod. First off of the west side of San Juan Island where they were headed northeast and then off of East point, the most northwestern point of the United States, and headed into Canadian waters. Our whales went international today, visiting a few countries along the way.
Within the pod, we were able to identify Mike. With Mike, we found his mother J16 (Slick); she has a little stripe of white coming off her saddle patch towards her dorsal fin making her somewhat recognizable. Two other animals were with this sub-group, possibly Slick's children Echo and Alki. Bringing up the rear of J-pod was Blackberry. And with him were about five to six other orcas, potentially his family.
And following behind Blackberry and crew were... humans! A research group with NOAA was out tagging whales again, trying to understand what the whale hear and the sounds in their environment.
Serena, Naturalist
San Juan Safaris