Piper | Thursday, May 23, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | 12:00 PM
The M/V Kestrel left the docks of Friday Harbor today at noon with me, an awesome group of guests, and the wonderful Captain Gabe. We headed north into San Juan Channel and before we could even get to speed, we spotted a bald eagle perched in some trees on Point Caution! Watching this eagle scan the waters of the channel was a great start to the trip! We picked up the pace and made it to the Wasp Islands where we came across a colony of harbor seals warming up in the sun and another bald eagle, this time perched on the channel marker taking in a 360-degree view of the water around it. We moved on to President Channel where we motored in a bit to check out some groups of harbor porpoises that were frolicking around the boat. We watched as these tiny porpoises surfaced for air while Captain Gabe talked to some other captains in the area and we got a report of orcas that were entering Active Pass from the Strait of Georgia! We motored all the way up to Trincomali Channel where we met the orcas as they exited Active Pass!
These were a group of about eight Bigg’s killer whales! We had some females, a sprouting male and even some small calves! The orcas started out going north into Trincomali Channel along Galiano Island before making a U-turn to head south toward Swanson Channel. They were surfacing in a tight knit group which made for awesome viewing! After half an hour with these orcas we headed south again through Plumper Sound and out into Boundary Pass.
Hanging a left along Saturna Island, we came across two humpback whales!! Slate (BCX1210) and her calf were swimming along in the direction of East Point and we got to watch as they surfaced one after the other, occasionally we got to see Slate’s fluke as she dove deep, the calf following close behind.
We had a big day, so after a while we headed south again towards Friday Harbor, but on the way we stopped at Green Point on Spieden Island where we got to see a Steller sea lion bull resting on the rocks with most of his body underwater but his head sticking out, warming up in the sun! We’re lucky this guy is still sticking around, soon he’ll head off to Alaska for his annual breeding season, so it was a blast getting to see him this late in May. We picked up speed again and soon arrived in the marina with some wonderful memories and bucket list items checked off! Till next time!