The past few weeks things have been very busy here. Part of the Southern Residents have been in our waters for a few weeks foraging. The annual conference of orca fans, enthusiasts, and researchers called SuperPod has been in town, and the weather has finally started to feel like summer. Yesterday (Wednesday) Captain Gabe and I went south with a great group south along the west side of San Juan Island. It is called the Haro Strait and this deep trench leading northward is where salmon runs from the ocean towards the Fraser River in Canada. The Southern Resident Orcas who mainly eat salmon in turn like to swim along this coast catching salmon along the way. As we made our way south past the lighthouse at Lime Kiln State Park we saw our first whale! It was a Minke Whale eating close to shore. Then it started lunge feeding! Minke Whales are baleen whales that eat tiny bait fish and sometimes they swim very fast towards their food and surface mouth open till they break the surface in a dramatic splash.
After that we continued south till Eagle Cove where we saw orcas! It was a small group of L pod members milling around. L22 (Spirit) and L89 (Solstice) were there and a few others as well. It was amazing to see them work together to push the salmon towards shore in order to catch more. After watching them for around 30 minutes we had to head back but not before we watched a few cool tail slaps by the orcas. Until next time folks.
Naturalist Erick
M/V Seahawk