At the time Captain Pete and myself got to the boat, there were no reports of whales in the area. However, by the time we got our guests on board there had been a confirmation that J-pod was still in the area! Naturalist Chelsea and I were pretty happy to share that with guests. J-pod was spread out off the west side of San Juan Island, fishing. There were small groups that were more off shore and a few closer to shore. We made the decision to watch the few close to shore and got some really great looks at J-16 (Slick).
Slick started to move off shore to meet her son J-26 (Mike). We were able to watch this family interact and start playing with one another, with some breaches and some spy hops. With more orcas moving to meet this group we soon were viewing a group of six orcas. They continued the playful behavior with tail lobes and pectoral fin slaps. Soon guests were seeing larges splashes far away, we learned that the whales doing that activity weren't orcas, they were Minke whales! While watching this group of orcas we were able to get a closer view of the two Minke whales having a bit of an identity crisis. They were porpoising like orcas and then breached two more times! I have never seen Minke whales act like this before.
Once we started for home, we ran into Granny's family group and were able to see L-87 (Onyx). Onyx should be traveling with L-pod but since his mother passed away in 2005, he has been traveling with other pods. He spent four years with K-pod, then moved to J-pod in 2010. Ever since then he has been traveling with Granny. Every year people get excited to see Granny come back, but every year I know I am excited to see Onyx traveling with her!
Aimee Kaczmarek
Naturalist, M/V Sea Lion