09/29/17- M/V Kestrel- 2PM
Today our guests were lucky enough to see a J pod party out on their whale watch! We left Friday Harbor and headed down South toward Smith Island.
On our way we stopped at Whale Rocks to see some Steller’s sea lions. These guys are back in full force with dozens of individuals all over the rocks. The Steller’s are one of my personal favorite animals to watch in this area. There are pretty predictably at these rocks and they are always so many different behaviors going on. It’s particularly fun to see the individuals playing round together in the water.
We continued past whale rocks and headed towards the reports of our Southern Resident Killer Whales, specifically J Pod. We first came across the J16’s, a family of five, including a fully grown adult male and a juvenile that is two years old. At first the family was continuesly traveling North West. But then the whales started displaying a huge amount of surface activity! We saw a ton of cartwheels, even from J26, the big guy in the group. We continued watching as saw more families of J pod, including the J19’s. We were lucky enough to see J27, a big adult male, breach twice!
It was amazing to see these animals so active out on the water. Our guests were treated with an exceptionally good day out on the water.
Naturalist, Rachel