Right out the gates, we headed south and just before Cattle Pass we encountered a harbor seal munching on a salmon it had just caught! At first, two gulls were interested in the seal's catch but each time it surfaced, another gull and then another and then another came on until there were ten gulls fighting for a piece of the salmon prize. Wait a minute, did the gulls even do any of the dirty work to catch that salmon?! Oh, scavengers.
Around the west side of San Juan Island, we started to see the tell-tale dorsal fins of the orca whales! We saw a cow-calf pair, two females and then a lone male traveling south along the island. Eventually, we saw three females/juveniles playing pass-the-bull-kelp! One animal had the kelp crossed over its dorsal fin while the others swam around in random directions to potentially catch it as the first orca dropped its "toy". Among some of the vessels offshore, we saw another eight whales in a closer group. Based on the vocalizations we heard on the hydrophone, we were seeing a very spread out resident pod of orcas.
As we continued around the northern part of San Juan Island and then Henry Island we saw more bald eagles on Henry and Battleship islands, both perched at the tops of their respective trees scanning the sea. At O'Neal Island, we saw one more bald eagle and then headed for home.
Serena, Naturalist
San Juan Safaris