whale watching

The Pacific Northwest is known for its rainfall.  And we are not complaining.  The rainfall here means full rivers, green grace, and a wonderful temperate summer.   While places like the Olympic Peninsula get up to 60 inches of rain a year and Seattle close to 40 inches, San Juan Island receives as little as 15 inches of annual rain fall.  Why the difference?  San Juan Island is in a rain shadow, which acts as a kind of umbrella for the islands.  Here in the San...

There is a lot of mystery surrounding new baby orca J50, but one thing is now clear.  It's a girl!  The telling photograph was snapped and everyone could not be happier with the results.  A healthy population needs females in order to continue matrilines and produce more offspring.  Currently the Southern Resident Killer Whale population has more breeding age males than females, which does not bode well for future offspring.  We can only hope that little J50...

Well, it's official!  A new calf has been confirmed in the Southern Resident Killer Whales, bringing their numbers to 78 animals.  It is believed that J16 gave birth to the new calf just a few days ago as the calf was first spotted near San Juan Island today.  42 year old J16, or Slick, is a seasoned mother, having already raised 5 other calves.  We hope that with her knowledge the newest member of J Pod survives the first crucial year of life.  The sex of the baby orca...

Captain Mike, Owner/Naturalist Brian, guests, and I left Friday Harbor headed north in the hopes of finding whales.  Even though we started the morning with no reports, we remained hopeful as we motored along Orcas Island.  And then puff it's a humpback and her calf!  Guests aboard the M/V Sea Lion were lucky enough to be the ones to spot the pair of humpback whales!  Over the past few years, we have been encountering more and more humpbacks, and we hope this marks the...

Today Captain Chris and I went on a whirlwind of a tour! With a report in hand of whales traveling south near the Anacortes ferry terminal we set out for a very determined tour. We left Roche Harbor heading south through both Spieden and San Juan Channels. We realized that we would not be able to see the orcas and make it back to Roche Harbor in the regular three hour window, so we consulted our group and they were very excited to go for a longer trip. Through Cattle Pass...

What an amazing trip we had today! We left our dock today in Friday Harbor without any whale reports once again, so Captain Mike and I decided we were going to head north to see what we could find in that region. We were looking for transient killer whales; this kind of killer whale hunts marine mammals. There is ample food for them north of San Juan Island including harbor seals, harbor porpoise, Steller Sea Lions (the largest in the world), and even Dall's...

With impending rain, Captain Mike steered the M/V Sea Lion north with Naturalists Heather and Emily, and guests in tow.  The goal: transient killer whales off North Pender Island in Canada.  A little Northwest rain did not dampen any spirits on board and before we knew it we were rewarded with great views of 7 transient orcas traveling southeast in Swanson Channel.  T137 and her offspring T137A, T137B, and T137D were traveling with T36A and her two offspring T36A-1...

What started out as a grey San Juan day, turned into an excellent day of sunshine and fun on the water! Naturalist Andrew and Captains Nancy and Chris encountered members Jpod and Lpod today off of the North West coast of San Juan Island. While traveling with the whales whale watch guests saw lots of spy hops and breaching. A young orca in the group was very active and got a lot of air while breaching! The orcas were swimming very close to shore around Kellett Bluff on...

Had a great tour yesterday with a family willing the brave the cool and damp weather. We ran a circuit in North Haro Strait around Kelp Reef, Henry Island, Stuart Island, and Speiden Island. We were hoping to encounter a group of Transient Killer Whales (marine mammal eating) that have been sighted frequently in the area. Weather conditions made visibility greater than a mile difficult. We did not see any whales, but did find large groups of Harbor Porpoise in Speiden...

Our Southern Residents continue to be seen in the northern part of Puget Sound (Port Townsend, South Whidbey Island). Both J-pod and K-pod have been spotted between the 16th and 18th (when the new calf was first reported in J-pod).

There have also been lots of Transient (marine mammal diet) Killer Whales in the San Juan and Gulf Islands. On December 21st, several Transients were spotted off the west side of San Juan Island, and later in the Kelp Reef area.