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Whales out East

Today we left Friday harbor and headed South through San Juan Channel and then East towards Anacortes.  When we got into San Juan Channel we came across a minke whale, which made for a nice surprise! We watched the minke whale and then continued heading South.  We went through cattle pass and stopped at the whale rocks to look at some large stellar sea lions.  We then headed East and found the J16's.  The J16's consist of J16 (Slick) and her three offspring J26 (Mike), J36 (Alki) and J42 (Echo).  We enjoyed watching the family hunting salmon and got to see some fun behaviors as well.  We watched Mike and Echo rolling on each other for a bit and saw Alki breach twice!  On the way home we stopped by iceberg point and saw three tufted puffins!  Tufted puffins are the largest species of puffin and area a rare surprise to see in this area.  We had a beautiful sunset this evening and had great lighting for photographs.  It was a great evening and we enjoyed every minute of our time on the water.

Naturalist Rachel

M/V Sea Lion, San Juan Safaris

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