Last scheduled tour of 2009 Saturday Oct 24
Turned out to be a beautiful day. Low 60's.
We took off from Friday Harbor and headed south. Only about 15 minutes out we encountered a hand full of harbor porpoise. Shy, they saw the boat and dove down and swam away.
Down near the southern tip of San Juan Island there where at lease a dozen or so huge Stellar Sea Lion. They weigh in between 1500 to 2000 pounds. A couple of them were swimming, but most were hauled out on the rocks sunning themselves and snoozing.
As we cruised a bit north up the west side of San Juan Island, we saw some dalls porpoise. The white tip on the small dorsal helps to locate them.
This tour saw lots of sea birds. We came upon a bait ball (bait fish all balled up near the surface) with herman gulls, glacous gulls, a couple merganzers and even a loon. The air seemed full of bonapart gulls (in non breeding plumage of cours - harder to spot).
We waved at the folks sitting on the cliffs of Lime Kiln park then headed for Speiden Island. There are always some animals to be found there. But this day it seemed like they were all out and all on the side of the island where we were. We had great looks the unusual sheep and deer.
Twenty five minutes later we pulled into Friday Harbor and said good bye too all of our guests until next year.
See you mid April 2010!
Regional interpreter (naturalist), Colleen Johansen
Orca Whales and Wildlife Are Our Only Business. ©
We took off from Friday Harbor and headed south. Only about 15 minutes out we encountered a hand full of harbor porpoise. Shy, they saw the boat and dove down and swam away.
Down near the southern tip of San Juan Island there where at lease a dozen or so huge Stellar Sea Lion. They weigh in between 1500 to 2000 pounds. A couple of them were swimming, but most were hauled out on the rocks sunning themselves and snoozing.
As we cruised a bit north up the west side of San Juan Island, we saw some dalls porpoise. The white tip on the small dorsal helps to locate them.
This tour saw lots of sea birds. We came upon a bait ball (bait fish all balled up near the surface) with herman gulls, glacous gulls, a couple merganzers and even a loon. The air seemed full of bonapart gulls (in non breeding plumage of cours - harder to spot).
We waved at the folks sitting on the cliffs of Lime Kiln park then headed for Speiden Island. There are always some animals to be found there. But this day it seemed like they were all out and all on the side of the island where we were. We had great looks the unusual sheep and deer.
Twenty five minutes later we pulled into Friday Harbor and said good bye too all of our guests until next year.
See you mid April 2010!
Regional interpreter (naturalist), Colleen Johansen
Orca Whales and Wildlife Are Our Only Business. ©
Labels: loon, merganzer, stellar sea lions, whale watching tour
posted by San Juan Safaris Whale Watching at
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