Another beautiful day on the water!
We headed south through Cattle pass, stopping to take a quick peek and a steller hauled out on the rocks. When we got a little closer we were surprised to see a male California sea lion lounging beside the steller. I have spent a lot of time around CA sea lions. I have seen them in the water and the big males can be quite intimidating. The CA we were looking at was certainly a big male with a huge sagittal crest, but the steller beside him made him look like a tiny little stuffed animal. It was a great opportunity to get a good idea of just how big the steller's are.
Once through the pass we cruised straight out toward salmon bank. Birds were everywhere! Porpoises started popping up all around us. Next came a posse of seals. Obviously we were headed in the right direction. A minute or two later we found what we were looking for. A minke whale surfaced next to an aggregation of birds, undoubtedly stealing away a portion of their hard earned fish. We watched as the sleek, stealthy animal surfaced a few more times and then slid below the surface. We sat and waited to see where the minke would surface. It was far from where he dove and in a completely different direction than he was going. We observed a second minke surface about a half a mile further out. It was hard to guess where they were going to come up. They changed direction with every dive and were constantly on the move.
When we finally left the minkes we cruised by the green buoy to take a look at another steller - ca seal lion pair. We headed over to long island to look for seals and eagles. We worked our way back around to whale rocks and noticed that the green buoy pair of sea lions had apparently jumped ship and we trying to commandeer the rock the other sea lions were lounging on. There was a bit of noise and teeth were bared, but eventually the duo on the rock moved over to accommodate the incoming pair.
It was a gorgeous ride back to the harbor. I hope this weather never leaves!
Laura, naturalist