The M/V Sea lion departed Friday Harbor with reports of Transient Orcas coming from Thatcher Pass. We motored past Yellow Island and stopped to check out some harbor seals hauled out on the rocks. After that we headed towards Green Point on Spieden Island and noticed some blows on the north side of the island. They turned out to be the Transients we had been looking for. Accordingly to some other boats in the area they had just made a kill, but it was hard for us to tell if they were feeding on anything or not. Eventually they were identified as the T65's. After watching the group mill for about 25 minutes we decided to circumnavigate Spieden and ended up finding numerous Bald Eagles and some more harbor seals. On the way along the north side we encountered the same group of T's and spent a few more minutes watching. They hadn't made much progress since we found them last, and they were changing directions quite frequently. We shut the engines down and watched as they made a direction change and increased behavior. We saw one of the younger animals breach about 200 yards from the boat! Most of the passengers got a really good look at this behavior! After a few more minutes we let the whales pass us by and we turned toward the harbor. It was an excellent change of pace to see Transients back around San Juan Island!
Mike
Naturalist - San Juan Safaris