Maxx K. | M/V Sea Lion| 04/25/2022 | 1:30pm
The day began with sun!
Sea Lion took a left out of Friday Harbor today, up and around towards rumors of Bigg’s Killer Whales that had been spotted earlier in the morning traveling up San Juan Islands western shores. Now of course, these whales were going to remain rumors until we saw them ourselves. As we know, whales are crazy and they are absolutely wild. If they wanted to disappear, they absolutely could!
We were not disappointed. We found the 49A’s just beyond Spieden Island. And just as soon as we found the whales, the rain found us. We didn't mind though, the presence of Killer Whales, rocky shorelines and rain meant for an authentic Washington experience!
The whales slowly meandered across the Spieden Channel and up towards Stuart Island where we paralleled them. This cool family is named after T049A, “Nan”and her offspring, who were mostly males. Male Bigg’s Killer Whales tend to travel with their mothers for their entire lives and dutifully follow her guidance and direction. Mama knows best after all so they are essentially big mamas boys! The family must’ve just snagged a late harbor seal lunch because they were quite active at the surface, tail slapping and rolling over one another, behavior I’ve often seen after hunting.
We moved with them around turn point lighthouse before carrying onward, slowly meandering through pea vine pass and back onto the northern side of Spieden Island. Juxtaposed with the southern slopes, the north side is almost entirely covered with forest. Fortunately, we were able to check out the herds of Mouflon sheep and Fallow deer on our trek out to the whales. This is the perfect time of year to get a good look at them because in the heat of the summer, the herds tend to keep to the cooler hidden shelter of the forest during most of the day.
We only saw one deer on the northern side- a lone male that seemed to have stumbled off a short cliff and stranded himself at the water’s edge. We watched as he made several futile efforts to climb back up the rocks before carrying on. I hope he made it eventually! Rounding out our circumnavigation of Spieden we ended up at Green Point where the musky stench of seal alerted us to the presence of several bull Steller Sea Lions. We slowly puttered by, checking out several bulls that rested on the rocks as several more drifted past off our port-side.
Soon enough we were rounding back into Friday Harbor! Thanks so much for coming out with us today y'all! It was an absolute pleasure sailing with ya!