Today on M/V Sea lion we left the dock with no whale reports and rain in the forecast. This is not an uncommon start for our pre-season tours; however, today our expectations were exceeded as the day continued. We left Friday Harbor with plans to go to the Canadian Gulf Islands in hopes of finding some transient orcas. We quickly got reports of transient orcas near Matia Island, on the North side of Orcas Island. We headed towards the area and saw a large pod of harbor porpoises on the way.
We met up the mammal eating Orcas on the Eastern side of Orcas Island where the whales seemed to be enjoying a bit of relaxing and socialization. The whales were displaying a lot of social behaviors including tail lobs, spy hops, and surface rolling. As we were watching the whales the sun began to come out which made for a beautiful warm spring day. We continued watching the T49A’s for a large amount of time and got some wonderful looks at the whole family. We then decided to circumnavigate Orcas Island and look for some other wildlife on the way. We saw some harbor seals hauled out on our way back to Friday Harbor. Those harbor seals are the number one food choice for those transient orcas.
All of our guests today, along with our naturalists Rachel and Andrew and Captain Mike couldn’t have asked for a better day out on the water. It was a beautiful spring day and you never know when you’re watching wildlife how your day will turn out.
