You know what people love more than whales? Nothing except more whales and maybe perhaps the idea of autumn as they drown everything in brighter earth tones, sweaters, and pumpkin spice flavoring, but today wasn’t one of those days it was a whale of a day. Captain Mike, myself and Alex headed north to search for the Southern Resident Orcas. We first spotted them around East Point on Saturna Island. This place is one of my favorite in the islands, the current get a little bit crazy here so the water is always constantly moving as well as concentrating nutrients bringing a whole bunch of different species of birds, seals, sea lions, and whales too! This point also is one of the areas where the Southern Residents get a little playful as they pass by for some reason. Everyone is still unsure why specific geographic areas cause this, but I believe it may be that the currents are the best there or that as they round corners they make splashes to announce their presence to the whole underwater world. So as we neared them you could already see a few breaches and tail slaps happening. This was most of K pod passing so we saw a few of their members closer than other. Scoter (K-25) who is a large male passed by after doing a large breach, and also his sister Spock (K-20) with her son Comet (K-38) passed pretty close as well. Next was all of J pod in their nice matrilineal lines. Line after line of families of orcas in J pod passed with some of the new calves that would mimic the breaches and tail slaps of their older family members. The final moments we had with these Southern Resident Orcas were the best as large line up passed us at the correct angle to create rainbows in their spouts, and finally two triple breaches as they passed our vessel. Woah, what a trip, and it’s not even over yet.
Next we spotted a Humpback Whale as we passed through Johns Pass. It was super to see the differences in size and behavior between these two different species of whales. We watched the Humpback fluke up a few times and then headed on our way but not before we spotted a bunch of Harbor Seals lounging on the rocks and a few Steller’s Sea Lions swimming in rips along Green Point. But that’s all folks, until next time keep being San Juanderful because we know we will.
Naturalist Erick
M/V Sea Lion
San Juan Safaris
