[08/19/17- M/V Sea Lion- Kelsey, Naturalist- 1:30PM]
We had quite some luck today! We had some transient, or mammal-eating, orcas juuust off the north end of San Juan Island near Henry Island just as we were departing Friday Harbor. We had them easily within reach, and we decided to take our time to see them by detouring around some of the special islands here in the San Juans.
We first visited Flattop Island, where we spotted bunches of harbor seals hauled out on the shorelines and rocky outcrops. Pigeon guillemots were paddling around the island, tweeting and chirping as we moved past. We also cruised the backside of Speiden Island, spotting a bald eagle at its nest with its juvenile. Seals were splashing and playing in the bull kelp, and we darted between them all and through the Cactus Islands. We then headed out to the orcas, watching salmon swim under our boat and jellyfish fly past us as we motored out towards East Point on Stewart Island. And there, we found the killer whales!
We watched them gracefully and slowly moving north, occasionally changing direction and heading west, but they were fighting the tides which slowed down all of their decisions. We were able to identify them as the T46’s and the T37B’s. It was super cool, because there were over 10 whales in this pod of two families that were just meeting up and hanging out! It is not unusual to see two or more different family groups of the same ecotype intermingling, but we would never see the transients hanging out with the Southern residents, the other ecotype of orca that we have in this Salish Sea region. We got to see adult males and females, juvenile males and females, and even some young kiddos!
Orcas are fantastic to see, but nature saved the best for last on this trip! As we passed the other side of Speiden Island on the return route home, we spotted some river otters on shore! We hardly get to see otters on our tours, but when we do, it’s a special treat! That summarized our day, today. It was a pretty special one!