Tuesday, June 5, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00 Noon
When we left the dock today there were no reports for orcas in the Salish Sea, so our plan was to head north toward Boundary Pass to see what we could find, but just as we rounded Point Caution to the north of our little town, the radio sounded off with great news! A group of Bigg’s killer whales had been sighted south of Lopez Island! Captain Gabe, naturalists Rachel, Mariana, and myself turned the boat around and headed south through San Juan Channel! We made it to Whale Rocks in Cattle Pass where we slowed and observed a large haul-out of Steller’s sea lions, kings of the rock, which were towering over a few harbor seals lying close to the water line.
Motoring around the rocks, a bald eagle perched on top came into view, its majestic white head in contrast to the beautiful blue sky. We headed southwest toward Lopez Island but before we could get far we encountered a lonely sea otter which has made its way up into the Salish Sea! This sea otter has been hanging around Cattle Pass for about a week now, but we don’t have a population of these little furry fellows, so it likely won’t be long before he continues along his journey. While we were stopped getting a nice look at this otter, a pod of about five harbor porpoises swam by! These tiny porpoises are very shy, but, possibly because we’d been floating for a while before they surfaced, today we got a very close look at them!
We continued along the southern edge of Lopez and met up with the group of orcas that had been spotted! These cetaceans were travelling west toward us so before long we looped the boat around and fell in line, watching as these giant black and white dolphins surfaced for air again and again. This group of Bigg’s killer whales was the T77s, which consists of the matriarch, T77, and four of her kids. We followed these guys back to Whale Rocks where they putzed around for a bit and we decided to do a loop around the banks which rise from the deep sea floor south of San Juan Island to see if we could find some cool wildlife. The waters were riddled with rhinoceros auklets, a relative of the puffin, and when we made our way back to the killer whales they were now traveling up the west side of San Juan Island. The water was perfect, and we could even see the orcas under the surface. What a beautiful day on the water!