Well, the morning arrived with little wet drops falling from the sky.  After a minute, I realized that rain had finally rediscovered the San Juans.  I wasn’t sure what the day would hold, as the rain made spotting orcas from shore a bit tricky.  But as the morning passed, we had reports of a potential Super Pod coming in from the West!  By the time our trip departed in the afternoon, we heard that L’s were down around Middle Bank heading for shoreline, and that Js & K’s were at Kelp Reef aiming for Kellett Bluff.  So it was a no-brainer as to which way to go–I love J Pod so I begged the captain to head north.  And it turned out to be a good decision!

We were just north of Kellett Bluff at 1510 when we spotted two orcas slowly moving north.  As they got closer, we could see it was a male and a female, and the female was pretty active with lots of tail slaps and many changes in direction.  Soon, they were close enough to get an ID, and it was none other than J1 Ruffles having quality time with his mom J2 Granny.  Ruffles was doing the usual very slow rise to the surface, where his dorsal fin would slowly rise out of the water like a periscope.  As this pair lazily passed the boat, our passengers were amazed at the size of his dorsal fin.  It was so peaceful–we were almost the only boat on the water, and the rain had abated to a light drizzle and the water was perfectly still.  The echoes of their blows rang off the bluff.  Granny was about 400 yards or so past us and suddenly she showed that 98 year-olds can still breach with the best of them.  It wasn’t long after that J34 Doublestuff, J27 Blackberry, and a majority of J Pod began to catch up to the matriarch and her son.  And apparently they were in the mood to play–7 breaches in a row, tail slaps, cartwheels, chin ups, pushing each other from below, and lots and lots of, well, “sea snakes”.  It seemed like every male that passed the boat was in a randy mood and happily showed it.  Our passengers weren’t sure of what to make of this behavior, but I took all the activity as a possible good sign that the whales are munching on lots of chum salmon (their second favorite and a big run this year).  On the trip home, Speiden Island was a veritable bonanza of activity with hundreds of the exotic animals eating the rain-soaked grass, 4 bald eagles hanging along shore, and about 70 harbor seals lounging on the shore.  No matter how wet it was, it didn’t dampen our spirits today!