Elle | M/V Osprey | July 16, 2022 |12:30PM
We set out on a cool, cloudy day from Friday Harbor in search of wildlife. We headed down south past Cattle Point on San Juan Island and pulled up to Whale Rocks, off the western tip of Lopez Island. Here we saw a haul out of harbor seals as well as Steller's sea lions. While harbor seals are here year-round, sea lions migrate out of the Salish Sea. It's pretty rare to see them here this late in the summer so we were grateful for the chance to get a look at them. We witnessed some territorial fighting between males as well as a big jump off a rock into the water. After learning about some more differences between seals and sea lions, we departed whale rocks and headed back up north. In the San Juan Channel, near Pear Point, we found two fifteen-year-old male Bigg's orca whales. These boys have been traveling together for several days and some have begun to call them "the butcher boys" because of their frequent and agressive hunts. We were super lucky to witness one of these hunts. The orcas circled a haul-out of harbor seals and did some sporadic lunging, indicating to us that they had some prey under the surface. After their hunt, they did some playful behavior. They slapped their pectoral and fluke fins on the surface, and even rolled over to show us their belly! These behaviors are super rare to sea in the wild so we felt very lucky! After an awesome encounter with these Bigg's killer whales we headed back home into Friday Harbor as they kept heading north. It's not often we get to spend so much time so close to the harbor and still see so much amazing wildlife!