Captain Mike and I were up early today and excited to see what was out there! Southern resident orcas had been hanging around the islands for the past couple of days and we could not wait to get a better look at them! We, along with our 11 smiling guests, headed down San Juan Channel to go look for some orcas. We first took a good look at the South end of Lopez and saw some harbor seals hauled out along with 3 bald eagles perched up in the nearby trees and rocks. We then headed towards Whale rocks to go check out some Stellar sea lions, we weren’t disappointed as we came around the rocks and could smell them before seeing their massive brown bodies relaxing on the not so comfy looking rocks. They were vocalizing plenty and some jumping in the surrounding waters to check us out or hide from us, who knows? We then took off to go find the whales down Haro Strait, but before getting too far, we stopped at Salmon Bank to check out a Stellar sea lion that had jumped up on the buoy making it completely lean towards one side. This is always so funny to see, as their massive bodies (weighing up to 2,500 lbs. barely fit in the floating buoys). We went a good bit off shore up the Strait and had heard reports of the residents being very spread out and off shore. We came up to a small group of females that seemed to be taking deep dives and maybe hunting. We then decided to keep going up and find more of Jpod that was behind these guys and farther up north. As we headed north west and towards Vancouver Island, we found a group of orcas with two big bulls; their dorsal so big you could not miss them! I quickly noticed, these guys weren’t part of Jpod. As we approached them, they seemed to be very active and moving fast, they came under our boat once and popped up yards away! We were able to stay with them for a while and finally out of nowhere, they came so close to us that Mike and I were able to see that they were not residents but instead Transients! They had with them what seemed to be a brand-new calf (due to the calf’s orange-y coloration)! The strait was calm and there were some clouds starting to settle in above us, making visibility of the water line better without the sun blinding us. As we pulled away and were headed back south and eventually back to the harbor, one of our guests spotted a tall spout in the distance. We stopped saw a small sized humpback surface! This was so exciting and special for us and our guests as we were able to see three types of whales all in the same area!
Mariana, Naturalist, San Juan Safaris