It warms my heart when I see full grown adults get excited--yelling, pointing, shouting, oohing and aahing--over marine life! 'Cause I'm one of those adults too!
Today, with no orca reports in the Salish Sea, we headed out on the water with a boat full of curious and eager passengers and lots of hope to see marine life. South from Friday Harbor, we started off with some harbor seals hauled out on the rocks, five of which were lined up side by side like sausage links! Further on at Cattle Pass, we saw a plethora of sea life from gulls of every variety to cormorants (aroma of fecal matter included) to more harbor seals to fifteen or so big Steller sea lions grumbling at one another.
Out of the pass, we had heard, swam a minke and so we went to investigate. After five minutes of searching--with the distraction of sea lions nearby for any short attention spans--the Captain of the Sea Lion spotted the tell-tale curved Minke whale dorsal fin. And another two minutes after that, passengers noticed it too! It appeared a little on the small side--a juvenile perhaps?--and continued swimming in what looked like foraging maneuvers. After twenty minutes of watching, we decided to move on and take our luck around San Juan Island in a circumnavigation.
Along the West side of San Juan Island, we found several harbor porpoises headed south, and at Spieden, we saw bald eagles and non-native Mouflon sheep and fallow deer. With every wave we crested and every splash we saw, our guests were in good spirits, excitedly pointing and telling their neighbors, "Porpoise, there! NO! Over THERE!" Wildlife! It's wild. It's life. What's more exciting?! Well, other than the curious humans shouting about it to each other!
Serena, Naturalist
San Juan Safaris