harbor seal

Here in the San Juan Islands we are constantly surrounded by beautiful marine wildlife. Our waters are home to a wide diversity of marine mammals including four species of whales, two species of dolphins, two species of porpoises, two species of seals, two species of sea lions, and we also have the possibility of seeing two species of otters! With such a great array of species, we sometimes come across injured or dead wildlife on our tours or while wandering the islands...

A member of J pod spyhops in Haro Strait

Today on M/V Sea Hawk was amazing. We caught up with some whales earlier than expected, just off of Turn Point. It was J2 Granny! Although there were no other whales in our immediate vicinity, there were some a few miles away, and thats nothing when you can communicate like an orca can (via sound that travels 8-10 miles). Everyone on the boat, and everyone on shore watched in awe as the oldest known killer whale in the world...

Today's wildlife tour took the Seahawk on a cruise around some of the most beautiful and eccentric islands in the San Juans. We ducked out of Roche Harbor through Mosquito Pass where double created and pelagic cormorants were drying their wings off on the buoys marking private docks. Once we moved into Haro Strait we picked up a little bit of a breeze and a light chop until we put the wind behind us and headed north. We spotted a bald eagle soaring past the west side of...

Today we started out by launching out of county park and started paddling north on a 5-hour kayaking trip.  The weather was perfect with blue skies and sunshine the entire trip.  Not long after being on the water we were surprised by a harbor seal popping up with 15 yards with what looked like a canary rockfish in its mouth.  We got to watch it gorge itself for awhile before paddling on.  We stopped for lunch and were just finishing up when we spotted a bull orca.  So we...

So I Know that I talk a lot about how social orcas are and how they are almost always found in their family groups, but like almost everything else there are exceptions to these rules as well. Yesterday (Wednesday) Captain Gabe and I left with a pretty small group to search for some more Transient Orcas. Just around Friday Harbor we came across a pair of male Transient Orcas! This is a little bit unusual, but definitely sometimes happens, especially in the Transients...

We received another misty Monday yesterday. Clouds floated low in the sky, slowly tearing away from the treetops on the islands. We headed north, and since we’re still in the shoulder season before the main schools of salmon start running through these waters we were looking mostly for Transient Orcas. Of the two ecotypes of orcas that live here one, the Residents, arrive in the summer to eat the salmon runs that occur annually. They are fish eaters and around 90% of...

Did you know that Humpback Whales have one of the longest migrations of any animal? Each year they spend their summers in polar regions and their winters in warmer climes closer to the equator. Imagine swimming from Alaska to Hawai’i then back again every year, almost every year of your life. Oh and you also don’t get to eat during your winter vacation in the tropics, there’s not really that much food and you’re worried about finding the perfect mate anyway. That what...

We were again treated to orcas close to San Juan Island. On the warmest day of the year so far and some of the best sunshine we’ve had in a while, we were definitely ready for another foray into the waters of the Salish Sea.

Again we had no reported whales in the area, but as we have seen in the past few days that does not mean that there are no whales around. We changed things up a bit and headed south, enjoying the scenery of the shorelines of both San Juan Island and...

Yesterday did not seem as though its was going have such a magical outcome. We left the dock with no good report of orcas. Then, thirty minutes off the dock, Captain Mike pulled me into the wheelhouse to pass along the news: Orcas, and lots of them! I hurriedly passed the news along to guests as we cruised under sunny San Juan skies watching gulls and harbor porpoise flit past.

We continued North around East Point on Saturna Island in British Columbia and stopped to...

We woke up this morning and it felt like summer! The sun was shining, the sky was that special shade of San Juan blue, and there were reports of whales! We headed north out of the harbor skirting the shore of San Juan Island. There were so many bald eagles out and about today, pretty much everywhere we looked we could find one! I think our end count today on eagles was right around 29 individuals!

We headed out into the northern portion of Haro Strait to a pair of...