San Juan Island Adventures

Guests on the Sea Hawk have been so lucky the past few days! While we do have over a 90% success for seeing whales during the summer, we don’t always see superpods. Today, we had another superpod! This is the 4th time in about a week. We first received reports of whales being near Kellet Bluff on Henry Island (Henry Isl. is one of the islands that barriers Roche Harbor). The Sea Hawk, with Captain Brian and Naturalist Kevin meet up with the whales near Hein Bank, which...

Overnight guide Nick just got back with his guests who were on a 3 day/2 night multi-day trip. The group departed from Friday Harbor early Friday morning, and paddled to Caution Point and Yellow Island before making their way to Jones Island. Nick and his guests agreed that the highlight of the trip was on their second night. The group hiked to the Turn Point Lighthouse on Stuart Island at dusk to see the sunset. The happened to be there at the exact right time and saw...

Naturalists Tiffany and Captain Nancy saw the killer whales on both whale watching trips! The headed south out of Roche Harbor and approached J& K-pods near Andrews Bay, which is about 3 miles north of the Lime Kiln Lighthouse. On the afternoon trip, the Sea Hawk met up with the whales just outside of Roche Harbor again! This happened a few days ago too :).

It was a bit blustery, but we were operating kayak trips as usual. Operations manager/kayak guide Noelle & Michael...

Captain Brian and Naturalist Tiffany just got back from their morning whale watch and they saw whales! The Sea Hawk departed Roche Harbor and traveled towards False Bay which is near the South Western end of San Juan Island. Captain Brian called to say they were in thick fog, but could hear the whales surfacing & breathing near the boat. The Sea Hawk shut down the engines and waited for whales to appear out of the fog. Polaris (J28) and her calf Star surfaced right near...

Two blog updates in one day!? What's going on here?? This update is so awesome that it deserves a whole blog to itself.

Captain Brian and Naturalist Tiffany just called from the Sea Hawk and they had a SUPERPOD! All 80+ Southern Resident Community killer whales where resting together along the west side of San Juan Island.

Awesome-sauce? Uh, yeah!

It’s been a busy day so far at Roche Harbor. We had all hands on deck this morning! Basically, every single double boat we own was out on the water this morning! Dock master Chris (aka Cinder) was fluffin’ and shakin’ all morning and Taylor and Brittany are holding down the desk & reservations!

Captain Brian Goodremont and Naturalist Tiffany just got back from their morning whale watch and they saw all of JPod & KPod mingled together spread out between Pile Point and...

Captain Brian and Naturalist Tiffany called us from the Sea Hawk to report that they had whales EVERYWHERE! We first had reports of L12s milling near Salmon Bank and the rest of L Pod near the Trial Islands. Our guests on the Sea Hawk where watching the L12s when the remainder of L Pod came crusin’ around the corner and sandwiched the Sea Hawk! Captain Brian shut down the Sea Hawk’s engines and floated while whales breached, spy-hopped, and swam all around the boat...

Captain Brian and Naturalist Kevin just called from the Sea Hawk to say they saw all of Jpod and Kpod swimming together in Canadian waters. Nearly 40 killer whales were resting shoulder -to-shoulder and all surfacing together and the same time. They even got another glimpse at little baby K44, who is this first offspring of K27, Deadhead. It seems like everyone on the island is starting to refer to K44 as “Garcia” to keep his name in the Greatful Dead genre. We had a...

It is a beautiful day here in Roche Harbor! The sunshine is out, the wind is light, and we have lots of tours out on the water today! Naturalist, Kevin, has just returned from out morning Whale Watch trip happy to share that they were able to view a sub-group of the L-Pod family, L 12's. Amongst this particular group of orcas is the eldest male among our Southern Resident Community (since the presumed passing of J 1, Ruffles), Mega (L41). Captain Brian was able to...

The sun has finally broken through the clouds, shining down on captian Brian and naturalist Tiffany along with their guests as they were again fortuanate enough to see the new calf, K44, along with his family just five minutes from our Roche Harbor departure location.                                                                                                                                                                        After spending a quality amount of time...