Today we left the dock on the M/V Sea Lion with a gorgeous day on our hands. We had reports of J Pod up North heading South towards Point Roberts. We headed in that direction and had a nice cruise through the San Juans towards the whale reports. On our way we stopped at East Point and got to see some harbor seals as well as some Stellar sea lions. We got to see first hand some of the main differences between the sea lions and seals. One of those differences is the sea lions ability to rotate their long flippers allowing them to walk on all fours. Compared to seals which have short flippers and basically flop around on land. Once we reached Point Roberts we got to see the J16 matriline which includes J16 (Slick) Her four offspring J26 (Mike), J42 (Echo), J50 (New baby!), and J36 (Alki) as well as J36's new baby J52. We watched the two new calves, which are about two months old, tail slapping and breaching while keeping up with the foraging family. After looking at all the females we then went and saw J26, who was doing his own thing a little ways a way from the females. After watching the whales feed for some time we decided to head back towards Friday Harbor through President Channel. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day out on the water today!
Naturalist Rachel
M/V Sea Lion, San Juan Safaris