[Piper | 8/30/18 | M/V Sea Lion | 1:30 PM]
Today, Captain Gabe, Naturalist Mariana and I boarded the Sea Lion with a great group of guests and headed north from Friday Harbor, all the way up into the Canadian waters of the Strait of Georgia. It took a little while to get there but it was so worth it because when we arrived, we found five families of Bigg’s killer whales, made up of 20 or so orcas, socializing and traveling south. These orcas were lobbing their tails and spy-hopping all over the place! We even got to see them breach! It’s pretty incredible to see so much surface activity from Bigg’s killer whales; they’re known for being very stealthy as they hunt for prey. When different families come together like they did today, though, they give up most of their chances for eating for a while to socialize with one another, which made for an incredible sighting for us! We traveled south in the strait with these whales for quite a while before we had to break away and motor home to Friday Harbor, and every moment was pure magic!