Stuart Island

Olivia | August 20th, 2019 | M/V Sea Hawk | 5:00pm Charter

This evening, Captain Sarah and I had a private charter booked on Sea Hawk that was a reunion for some old college friends and their families. It was such a fun group of folks right off the bat that came pouring on with all the yummy foods to make it a social outing in the Salish Sea. We headed north through the San Juan Channel in hopes to see a potential whale sighting near Sandy Point off Waldron Island. Being...

Jordan | M/V Sea Hawk | 07/24/19 | 2:00pm

What a beautiful day!

Captain Sarah and I booked it out of Roche Harbor and headed out to open seas. We boated up north around Spieden Island and towards Johns Island and Stuart Island!

Here we passed by a cute summer camp where they put up teepees along the shoreline. We passed by a recreation of a Native American long house as we passed through John’s Pass.

Then we crossed Boundary Pass into open waters and up towards Saturna...

Jordan | August 27, 2018 | M/V Sea Hawk | 2:00 trip

Photo Credit: John Rosford

Today was a great day out on the water! The sun finally shone brightly in the sky after many days of cloudy and smoky haze. We left out of Roche Harbor as Captain Gabe and I took to the sea to find our whales. We headed south out of Mosquito Pass and down the south side of San Juan Island through the Haro Strait.

As we were searching for wildlife, we suddenly saw a blow off in the distance! We...

Calf surfaces just behind mother. This is often called eschelon swimming, when the baby is just being pulled in adults slip stream.

This morning, Captain Gabe, our 18 excited guests, and I left the dock with the intention of heading south toward some reported Southern Resident killer whales.

Before we had actually left the harbor, Gabe came down from the helm to let us know that some whales had been spotted up north, moving south. With those being a bit closer, we...

Pete and I left Roche Harbor for our 11 o'clock tour without any promising whale reports. Luckily, Roche Harbor is very close to Henry, Speiden, Stuart, Johns and the Cactus Islands. Each of these islands are home to an array of different wildlife. First, we cruised through mosquito pass where we saw our first (but certainly not last) Bald Eagle, as well as a harbor seal swim by the boat. We motored north along Henry Island where we found two more Bald Eagles. We also...

This past weekend's overnight was one for the books, or in this technological day, one for the blogs! Try as I may, I feel my words will pale in comparison to the outstanding trip our lovely guest had this weekend... but here I go. Friday morning came with some much needed rain for the San Juan Islands. Things had been quite dry, and so locals alike were happy to see the precipitation. I was worried it would affect the guests mood and excitement but when Tyler and I...

We spent three days paddling with a great group of eleven people and what an exciting three days it was! Our trip began in Friday Harbor where we shoved off in pursuit of Jones Island. The paddle provided us with some stunning views of Mt. Baker, a delicious lunch at Point Caution and much sunshine. There were bald eagles, harbor seals and jellyfish about for our viewing pleasure. After setting up camp we played an intense game of ultimate frisbee, packed our hungry...

This morning, M/V Sea Hawk motored north toward Stuart Island. Just in between Spieden Island and Stuart Island we encountered a group offshore. We first saw a few of them porpoising quickly through the strait, and soon after we saw the whole family porpoising quickly out of the water. By doing this activity the group sped up to 12 knots! This is a pretty fast pace for our Resident Orcas to be traveling at. After trying to keep up with this lead group, we heard of another...

Megan, one of our Kayak guides, reported that the guests on our 3 hour sea kayak tour were so excited to see K-Pod while they were paddling on the west side of Henry Island. They had just gone past McCracken Point on Henry Island when they happened to spot orcas in K-Pod going north towards Stuart Island. It was an amazing sight to see!