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. ©

A Thank You From A Whale Watching Guest

This just in from one of our great visitors...
Thank you so much for a wonderful day for me and my family yesterday. We loved the tour and the island. My wife and I are planning our retirement from the military vacation next year for the Seattle area and already plan on spending much of our time out there. Tristan and Jeannette were great!
Sincerely,
James Owens

We love hearing that everyone had a great time...

Thank You,
Jeannette (naturalist)
Orca Whales and Wildlife Are Our Only Business. ©

Rocking & Rolling off the West Side of San Juan Island

Savoring the last day of Memorial Day weekend, Capt. Craig, Tristen, and I departed Friday Harbor aboard the MV Sea Lion with a boat full of guests, excited to see orcas. Yesterday was a new moon and today we had tide fluctuation of 12 feet (a -3.22 low) so we pushed on through choppy Cattle Pass, determined to catch up with J Pod. We reached J1, Ruffles, while parallel with the northen most portion of American Camp on the southern end of San Juan Island.

J Pod was busy foraging along the westside of San Juan Island. The guests caught some great glimpses at J Pod's oldest male (J1), as well as some fantastic views of J17 and her new calf J44. It was rough out in the Haro Strait today, but that didn't hinder the excitement of viewing J Pod fishing off of the south and west side of the island.

On our way back we saw some of the other wildlife that are around the islands, including bald eagles, harbor seals, and a California sea lion.

What a great day.
Ashley, Naturalist



Orca Whales and Wildlife Are Our Only Business. ©