Today the Sea Lion departed at 1:30 with Captain Mike, Naturalist Kevin, and myself. We traveled south to Cattle Point and along the way we encountered some friendly Harbor Seals. We spotted a group of ten of them with there heads peaking out of the water on our port side. Then we also spotted a group of six curious seals looking at our boat, on our starboard side. Traveling onward to the west side of San Juan we first spotted Orcas just south of Lime Kiln Lighthouse. We got a spectacular sighting of Granny and Onyx. Granny is our oldest Orca and is estimated to be 102 years old! We had some great viewings of family groups swimming closely together. For example, we watched the playful J14s splash and swim pass. In this group we saw the little calf born last year swimming right next to his mother. We also saw the "Cookie Clan", one of Kevin's favorite groups. It is common for these orcas to swim together as a family. That is one thing that makes them different from other whales. We continued north to watch most of J-pod and broke off from them around Open Bay. We continued north to circumnavigate San Juan Island while enjoying plenty of sunshine!
Aimee, Naturalist, San Juan Safaris