San Juan Island Adventures

Spyhopping Southern Resident Killer Whale off of Henry Island, WA

Sunday mornings, especially on holiday weekends, are my favorite times to be at Roche Harbor. The excitement in the air is palpable, usually the sun is shining in a bright blue sky, and we have the chance to welcome and host a group of very enthusiastic people.

This Labor Day weekend was no different. On our 11am departure we had a group of our Southern Resident Killer Whales reported off the Westside of...

Today, Captain Gabe and I took a super enthusiastic group out on the M/V Seahawk! We headed south along the west side of San Juan Island to look for the Southern Resident Killer Whales. These are the salmon eating ones that live in the north pacific and usually spend much of the summer inside the Salish Sea since salmon have to make their way through to find the rivers that they were born in. This year is a historically low salmon year so we have not seen the residents...

Guess who’s back, back again? It’s not Slim Shady, but it is the largest species of Sea Lions in the world!! In the San Juan Islands there is an over-wintering population of Steller’s Sea Lions, aka Northern Sea Lions, aka Eumetopias jubatus. These sea lions inhabit the northern Pacific Rim Coast from Northern California to Northern Japan and are a unique feature to our area. They went through a steep decline in the ‘80s and 90’s for unknown reasons, but now their...

Mike J26 and sibling near Gooch Island

Captain Gabe and I were delighted to hear that there were southern resident killer whales spread from Turn Point to Battleship Island as we were leaving the dock this morning. Knowing that they were headed south at high speeds (8 kts), we decided to exit through Mosquito Pass which spits us out at Open Bay near Kellet Bluff on Henry Island. By the time we arrived, so had the whales.

At first we were passed by the K13s, a group of...

[caption id="attachment_1658" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="K25 Scoter breaching"]

This afternoon, Captain Pete and I motored north on M/V Sea Hawk with 18 guests on board toward a report of southern resident killer whales. Not far from Blunden, we picked up the K13s, a group of 7. It started out as a pretty standard encounter--grouped up animals surfacing intermittently, and guests were thrilled. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, they...

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

The M/V Seahawk had quite the adventure. Captain Gabe and I left the dock with no reports of orca whales, but literally two minutes off the dock… WHALES REPORTED ON THE RADIO! Our guests were all in a tizzy, as these reported individuals were some of our Resident, salmon-eating killer whales. This time of year is best to come see our...

K12s and K13s

After almost a week having gone by without working together, Captain Pete and I started off our 11am trip on M/V Sea Hawk. Unfortunately, there had been no whale reports before we left the dock. We weren't super surprised because the west side was incredibly foggy, which makes it difficult to find whales, for obvious reasons. So we headed north out of Mosquito Pass, toward locations where we knew we could see other wildlife, and that would be a good...

We pulled out of beautiful, sunny Roche Harbor in hopes of finding killer whales (orcas) in the thick fog that surrounded the southern half of San Juan Island. We began heading south and had to turn on our radar and use a fog horn to communicate with surrounding vessels, it was a unique way to travel but also very safe. As we began slowing in the fog - we spotted two black dorsal fins cutting through the water. We had spotted K-Pod (southern resident killer whales)! We...

Transient killer whales

At 9am this morning, Captain Jim and I set out from Roche Harbor with a private charter. I was hopeful, but not fully expecting to see whales on this trip. At least not right at first. It was early in the morning, which means that not many boats had been out looking for whales yet. And M/V Sea Hawk alone can only cover so much ground on its own. There were whales spotted near Vancouver (way out of our range), and whales spotted headed west at...

Of all the creatures spotted on our wildlife tours this summer, K pod resident killer whales have been the most elusive. They spent the majority of the summer in their wintering grounds in the Pacific Ocean, making us wonder if we were ever going to spot them again! Finally, a few days ago, J pod returned to the Salish Sea and brought K pod swimming along with them.

We headed out of Mosquito pass to follow up on a report of residents milling around False Bay on the...