Whale Watching Report

Our morning trip today wasn't a normal whale watching trip. We had a private charter that we took to Friday Harbor for some shopping in the middle of the day. Luckily, L-pod was in a spot where we could give these passengers a short look at whales on our way back to the dock in Anacortes. We found 20 - 30 L-pod orcas swimming close together in a resting group offshore from Iceberg Point. Mega, L41, Matia, L77, Calypso, L94, Racer, L72, Fluke, L105, and others were there including Marina, L47, and the new calf L111. We saws the new calf many times to our passengers delight.

3:30pm Trip
Our second trip started out with rain, and a weather forecast that didn't look ideal, but it turned for the better quickly. Conditions improved and we ended up with calm sea conditions and the rain stopped toward the second half of our trip. We cruised through the inner San Juan Islands to start with. Along the way we found harbor seals, a bald eagle, pigeon guillemots, and rhinoceros auklets. We came out through Cattle Pass and found L-pod orcas spread out offshore from Eagle Point, on San Juan Island. We spent a lot of time with Mega, L41, Matia, L77, and Calypso, L94 in the beginning. All the orcas were changing directions often and appeared to be pursuing salmon. Some groups were more playful and active than others. We gravitated toward the playful groups, and got to see lots of different behaviors including spyhops, breaches and tail slaps. We shut the engines down several times to watch and hear the orcas as they swam by. At one point a big rainbow appeared and we had some of the orcas swimming right in front of it for a great photo opportunity. At the end many L-pod members, including Mega, approached us at close range for a great finale with our engines shut down, calm seas, and the sun doing down, all at the same time. What started out looking like a difficult weather day turned out to be two very enjoyable whale watching trips. Naturalist Bart Rulon