Whale Watching Report

Orcas porpoising on our afternoon trip!

We had another perfect day for whale watching today. It was calm, sunny, and hot. We started out our day searching for whales in Rosario Straits. We cruised north looking until we reached Point Lawrence on Orcas Island. At Peapod Rocks we watched a bald eagle and several harbor seals on the rocks. One seal mom with her pup were swimming close by. Next we turned south and headed toward Hein Bank. We got word about orcas coming in from the Pacific Ocean out near Port Angeles so we did our best to get out there as fast as possible. Along the way we spotted two minke whales near the south end of Hein Bank. When we finally reached the orcas we could see that it was obviously a superpod. Members of all three resident pods were present. Most of them were tightly grouped up in a HUGE resting group. A few other orcas were spread out closer to us and they appeared to be wide awake and looking for fish. Close by we saw Cappuccino, K21, his sister Raggedy, K40, Splash, L67, and Canuck, L7. Our group was the most active. K21 turned upside down and did several tail slaps at the surface. One of the others breached for us twice, and we saw about three spyhops. Captain Carl positioned us perfectly for a photo of Cappuccino swimming along with Mount Baker in the background. Soon the large resting group started to wake up and spread out just as we started to head back to the dock. We were late coming back, but I think everybody was happy that we saw orcas!!

3:30pm
For our afternoon trip we started by traveling through the inner San Juan Islands heading northwest. We saw several harbor seals in the water and some eagles in the trees as we went along. We reached the orca superpod at the west side of Stuart Island. Some orcas were grouped up pretty tightly and others were spread out. Faith, L57 was swimming with a bunch of J-pod members. We saw members of all three pods again on this trip. Some of the orcas that were spread out were pretty active. We saw many breaches today especially from the young calves. A group of 4-5 calves were all playing around with each other, breaching, splashing, and rolling around. All the orcas started to move in toward the shoreline of Stuart Island. We saw several orcas perform cartwheels near shore and many of them had bull kelp draped in their dorsal fins as they swam. Ruffles, J1, and Mike, J26, were in clear view as they swam near the shoreline. The lighting was beautiful for photography on the orcas. On our way back to the dock we cruised close to Speiden Island and saw many of the exotic animals feeding out in the open including the fallow deer, mouflon sheep, and sika deer. When we slowed down through Wasp passage we spotted the osprey nest and an osprey perched nearby. What a beautiful day for watching all three pods swimming together!! Naturalist Bart Rulon