[Friday – 4/6/18 – 12:00 – M/V Sea Lion – Naturalist Erick]
Today was a perfect Pacific Northwest day. This morning was completely covered with a misty low-level cloud cover. It was only about 1,000 feet high, so it masked the tallest hills in the islands and scraped the tops of the evergreen forest covering the islands. This is the weather that this area is known for and what it was meant to look like. As Captain Mike and I took a small group out with us to go look for some whales and other wildlife, the clouds started to burn off and the sun started to peak through in the calm afternoon. We turned south and wound our way in between Turn Island and San Juan Island. Here there are a bunch of Harbor Seals relaxing on the rocks and even a Steller Sea Lion swimming in the waters surrounding Turn Island which is tiny island all of which is county park. We watched these blubbery seals for a little bit as they stared back at us. These creatures are amazing. They look pretty goofy on land where they can only scooch, but under the water they are totally graceful and expertly hunt in the underwater world. They can stay under water for about half an hour by slowing their heart rate down and storing lots of oxygen in their blood stream and muscles. We moved on from them and headed into Griffin Bay. Here we soon saw two orcas travelling together. They were the same two Transient (Bigg’s) Orcas that we saw yesterday! This was an adult male, T49C and another orca, T653? Perhaps? (I honestly don’t know). They were zig-zagging back and forth through San Juan Channel. I don’t know why they were traveling together. Usually orcas travel in family groups, but sometimes there are lone males or groups of adult males that travel together, but I have never seen an adult male and a sub-adult. We watched them for a while as they slowly traveled across the channel and their blows mingled with the low-lying clouds. We then traveled south towards Cattle Pass and stopped at Whale Rocks. Here we saw at least 30 Steller Sea Lions all roaring on the rocks and some swimming in the kelp forest around the rocks. These behemoths are about the size of a mid-size car and lie all over each other on the rocks in a big fuzzy cuddle puddle. We left these rocks and scooted over to Long Island where we saw around eight Bald Eagles both adult and Juveniles casting their steely keen gazes over the waters of the pass. We toured their little island and even got to see one of their enormous nests before turning north again. Before we arrived back in Friday Harbor we got to see those two Transient Orcas once more. They were still zig-zagging through kelp forests trying to find unsuspecting seals to hunt and eat. We got some great looks as they passed us once more and the sun started to really shine through the grey clouds! Well that’s it for another exciting wildlife day out in the Salish Sea!
Until next time,
Naturalist Erick
