I drained a few tablespoons of sea water from the pocket of my rain jacket while recounting the details of yesterday’s wild adventure to our Sunday guests. Today had to be a smoother ride, I promised, and indeed it was. The skies were just as ominous, however, and the wise whale watchers left nothing to chance, immediately taking refuge in the protected cabin.
Our first stop was the San Juan version of Jurassic Park: Spieden Island. In the late 1960s, two taxidermists from Seattle purchased the island, stocked it with an unusual menagerie of exotic ungulates and game fowl, and rebranded the 3-mile-long oasis “Safari Island.” When a Seattle news agency published a scathing story about the fledgling enterprise, a swell of public opinion inspired the Washington legislature to shut down the operation. But over fourty years later, some of the introduced wildlife lives on, including big horn sheep and fallow deer from the old world. The other great ape of North America, Sasquatch, is also rumored to call the island home. I continue to conduct careful surveys for the troglodyte and have spotted many a suspicious hairball on the verdant slopes of the island, but I’m unprepared to either confirm or deny his existence.
As Captain Mike steered our adventure into the vast waters of Haro Strait, I and my guests can attest that killer whales continue to infest San Juan waters. Powerful and intelligent, transient orcas are apex predators that sample everything from swimming deer, adult baleen whales, and great white sharks. We witnessed no feats of hunting today though, as the whales appeared to be in transit to the next meal site.
Andrew Munson
Naturalist, M/V Sea Lion
San Juan Safaris