Yesterday we left Friday harbor with the reports of transient orcas far south. We were taking the long trek towards where the transients were when they decided to pick up speed moving south, making them out of our reach. At that point we decided to turn around and look for some Minke whales in salmon bank. We got some great looks at some Minkes and even got to see one lung feeding! We then headed over to long island and looked at a huge bald eagles nest. On average a bald eagles nest will get 8 feet wide and 6 feet deep. We then headed to the whale rocks and saw some stellar sea lions socializing in the water! As we were leaving the whale rocks we were surprised by some reports of orcas in the area! We decided to go for it! We were looking hard for the orcas when we found J26 (Mike) and got some great looks at him before we had to head back to the dock. We had an exhilarating day out on the water and everyone seemed to enjoy the wide range of animals we got to see!
Naturalist Rachel
M/V Sea Lion, San Juan Safaris