Another beautiful day in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island Washington. Kendall and I were lucky to have a group from Olympia up for the day, hoping to spot Killer Whales and other wildlife. Even though our Southern Resident Killer Whales were spotted 3 days ago near Port Angeles, there has been no sign since. This time of the year, our Whale Watching trip to encounter the unexpected, so we always leave the dock with a spirit of adventure.
Our search for wildlife started with some great interaction with some Stellar Sea Lions right outside the harbor. Lots of foraging behavior mid channel. We continued on and found another large group of Harbor Porpoise (perhaps the same we saw yesterday) just east of Sentinal Island. I think this group must be staying close by. Lots of wild deer and sheep on Speiden, as well as over 30 juvenile, sub-adult, and adult bad eagles in the area. We continued searching in Boundary Pass and Haro Strait without luck, until just before we started heading home, found a very active group of Dalls Porpoise. These interactions can at times be more exciting that Killer Whales. Dalls Porpoise enjoy "surfing" on the bow wave of slow moving boats, and they proceeding doing just that for about 10 minutes. Amazing!! I'm hoping the crew from Olympia got some good photos. I will post them later this week. No sign of Killer Whales today, but a great all around wildlife tour. I heard some Transient Killer Whales were sighted from the Victoria shoreline later in the day, but no boats were around. I'll follow up later if that sighting is confirmed.