[Sunday, 10/7/18, Noon - M/V Kestrel - Erick]
This Sunday was another classic Pacific Northwest fall day. The water was glassy calm, the rain came down in a calm almost imperceptible drizzle, and the evergreen forest canopy scraped the low hanging clouds. Capt. Brian and I headed out with a great group from all over the world on M/V Kestrel to find some amazing animals out in the Salish Sea! We headed north and very soon found a group of Orcas around Green Point off of Spieden Island not too far north of Friday Harbor. We soon saw that it was a group of Bigg’s Orcas, also known as Transient Orcas, that were traveling north. It was the T49A’s! This family has a few young ones and a large male who is the oldest son of the matriarch, T49A. They were traveling on the north side of the Cactus Islands and then scooted around to Johns Island. It was pretty interesting since this is the ecotype that preys on marine mammals but they kept passing large groups of Harbor Porpoises and did not hunt!
After getting some great views of these orcas as they traveled through the eddies coming off of Spieden Island we went south towards Spieden Channel and Haro Strait. Before we headed off we went into New Channel to dirft and look at all the Harbor Porpoises and few Bald Eagles and a whole slew of Harbor Seals resting on the sandstone rocks jutting off the edges of the Cactus Islands. It is so amazing to see so much life in one small spot! Next we went looking for more in Northern Haro Strait. We cruised to Turn Point on Stuart Island. Here there is a pretty cool historic Light Station next to a huge cliff. The cliff is next to the deepest parts of the islands so you can get right up next to the cliff if you want. We got super close so you could see all the undulations that have been carved out of the cobbles and sandstone through the ages. As we were admiring the unique geology of the area and the bird rookery here I saw a blow in the distance. We motored over there into Boundary Pass and found a Humpback Whale! These giants are a lot bigger than the orcas and feed on plankton! This one was feeding an traveling along the northern shoreline of Stuart Island. This behemoth whale was a full grown Humpback Whale so it was at least 40 feet long!
We watched this whale fluke up, showing its enormous tail above the water, a few times before we moved on to watch the T49A’s again in between Skipjack and Waldron Islands! We got even more great looks at these amazing Bigg’s Orcas before we made our final journey back to friday Harbor via Presidents Channel.
Whale folks, until next time!
Naturalist Erick