Whale of a Day

Today was absolutely perfect! J-Pod was foraging between Cattle Pass and Lime Kiln and were especially friendly to the Sea Lion, our 55' vessel. The guests had amazing looks at J-1 as he parallelled our boat for about 15 minutes. He, along with J-16 and her calf J-42 gave us a great show. J-42 seemed to be in high spirits as she breached multiple times in front of the boat. As we continued up the west side of San Juan Island, we got even better looks at J-27 (Blackberry) as he surprised us right off out port side! He hung out nearby for a few breaths before rejoining his family offshore. We also saw Princess Angeline and her daughter Tallequah, but no looks at Polaris, Princess Angeline's oldest daughter (and my favorite). As if looks at J-Pod, Bald Eagles, Harbor Seals, and Mouflon Sheep weren't enough... we also saw a juvenile HUMPBACK WHALE swimming in San Juan Channel. Captain Pete has been doing this for twelve years and this was the first time he saw a humpback in the San Juan Channel! This juvenile was such a shock that we called a group of marine mammal researchers to come out and photograph the animal in hopes of figuring its story out. We will keep you posted on what they find out. Either way, the humpback gave us a nice show as it parrallelled us heading north up San Juan Channel from Shaw Island to Yellow Island. We even got to see some deeper dives where the animal hoisted its back out of the water and lifted its fluke (tail), giving us some great photo opps. Today was a perfect day... it's always nice when the animals lend a hand/flipper!

Every day is full of surprises and you never know what amazing things you'll see when you book a trip with San Juan Safaris.

Megan Young, Naturalist