San Juan Island Adventures

Today Captain Gabe and I left Roche Harbor on the ol' Hawk joined by a fantastic family and ready for adventure! After a leisurely cruise theough Speiden Channel to the East side of San Juan Island to handle some touching family matters, we decided to venture North in search of the most majestic monochrome mammals around, Orcas! We had heard reports of the Southern Residents making their way around Turn Point, the most Northwesterly point in the San Juan Islands.

We...

This afternoon's trip on the Seahawk began like many others. It was a warm day on the dock, our passengers were excited, and Captain Jim and I had no reports of killer whales. We left the dock anyway, and headed North out of Roche Harbor towards Stuart Island.

While answering questions about everything from whales to jellyfish to sharks and octopus, Jim and I were also scanning for Whales. Before long, we spotted dorsal fins heading towards Turn Point, the furthest...

Today Captain Gabe and I took out the ol' Seahawk on yet another adventure in the San Juan Islands to help connect excited passengers to the incredible ecosystem of the Salish Sea!

We left the dock in Roshe Harbor with the sun in the sky (after a rainy spell) and a collective mind to find some Orcas. We had no reports as of leaving the harbor, but that soon changed.

We headed South through Mosquito Pass, very narrow and scenic channel leading from Roche Harbor to the Haro...

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...

Today was a great day to be on the 5 hour kayaking trip.  We started out the day seeing a plethora of seals hauling out together, even seeing some mother seals and their pups! We then came across several bald eagles.  Upon pulling up onto a beach for lunch we had a beautiful eagle sitting right above us.  Later on we came across some really cool purple ochre sea stars and a male harbor seal put on a display by causing some big splashes.  To end our day we finally got to...

A Long day and perhaps a shorter than normal post.

Capt. Gabe and I took two tours out with us today and we were blessed with the fast that s small portion of the Southern Residents were already moving south from Point Roberts, and moving fast! The heat wave we had a few days ago had broken so we had cool breezes and a very sunny San Juan morning. The orcas were apparently on a tight cetacean schedule because they beat us to East Point off of Saturna Island. It was the K...

Today Captain Gabe and I took out the Seahawk with a fantastic group onboard to go check out some of the unique wildlife in the Salish Sea. While we had a beautiful day in the harbor with the sun shining and the whale reports were good, it was just a bit windy out in the Haro Strait.

Our prevailing winds in this area usually come out of the SouthWest. For the San Juan Islands, this means a calm day on the water because the Olympic Mointains shield us from the worst of the...

While out on my afternoon three hour tour I was fortunate enough to encounter the J-pod! The couple I was with and I had just made our way to one of my favorite spots off of half moon bay in search of sea stars, when out of no where we heard a giant blow hole release! To our delight we saw one lone orca making it's way to the north. I mentioned how strange it was to see just one whale and either there were more coming or this one was on the move to catch up. However my...

Each Orca has a grayish-white area directly behind their dorsal fin that we call the saddlepatch. On each orca this patch is a little bit different and when we look at both the saddlepatch and the dorsal fin we can begin to pick out individuals in the pod. Today we had a great opportunity to begin to pick out individuals from the 81 members of the Southern Resident Killer Whales. Capt. Gabe, our excited guests, and I left Roche Harbor this morning with a lot of sunlight...

Today we left Roche Harbor expecting to have to drive north for a bit before we got to any orcas. Instead, we drove for about 10 minutes, and were surprised to find the J19s right away! Traveling with them, was Onyx (L-87), which led us to believe that Granny (J2) was also somewhere in the area because she is his adoptive mother. Everyone was so excited to see the new baby in J19 clan, which belongs to J41 (Eclipse), one of 4 calves born to the southern resident...