I went out with an especially cheerful group of people who were 0ld friends with eachother. In 1992, they flew around the world in small planes, over Russia. Now they get together every year, and this year they got together in San Juan and chartered the Kittiwake. The name of their group was the International Friggin' Crazy Flying Club. So as you can imagine, they were a fun group to go out with.
When we left, it was gray, a thin blanket over everything, but relatively warm. The whales led us into a ring of sunlight, as when we cam upon them we entered the light as well. I spotted Mike from J pod, but everyone else I identified was from L pod, such as Spirit and Mega. They were on long dives, again probably foraging and active at the surface as well- splashing, rolling, tail lobbing and of course, everyone's favorite, breaching!
We couldn't see the snow capped peaks of the Olympics, and haven't been able to for some time because of haze, but we could see Vancouver Island and the outskirts of Victoria. Captain Denny took us especially close to South Beach, part of American Camp, so for the first time I really got a good view of it from the water. It is a few miles long with breathtaking cliff sides of glacial till. When we stopped by the Stellar Sea Lions on Whale Rocks, the king of the mountain made a show of posing like a statue soaking up the sun. He stood with his head up and eyes slightly closed, all 2,000 pounds of him.
Lauren Sands
Naturalist
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