Who says that a good playmate can’t be of a different specie? Anyone who has a dog in their life knows exactly what I’m talking about when I say this, but what about other animals? Several years ago I was lucky enough to spend six months living on Maui researching humpback whales. One of the most enthralling and interesting things I observed was watching bottlenose dolphins play with the humpbacks. The dolphins would excitedly swim right in front of the humpbacks and then suddenly, the whales would lift the dolphins out of the water on their giant heads and the dolphins would then go sliding down the whale’s back. It was hysterical to watch and it just seemed like the dolphins and the whales were having such a good time together. After a “sliding” incident, the dolphin would frantically swim back to the front of the whale’s head and would become very surface active almost as if to say, “Do it again! Do it again!”
Last night we witnessed an interesting inter species hang-out session. We found the K12’s - K12 “Sequim”, K22 “Sekiu”, K37 “Rainshadow”, K33 “Tika”, and little bitty K43 hanging out with a minke whale! Or maybe the minke whale was hanging out with them. It was hard to say, but it was certainly a lot of fun to watch. There was lots of surface activity - breaching, spyhopping, tail-lobbing, and even a seasnake! The orcas continued to mill around in one area and the minke was among them. Usually when we see minke whales, it’s a very nice treat, but they don’t come to the surface very often and are therefore harder to track than the orcas. This was not the case last night! The minke was surfacing very often and was right in the thick of the playing orcas a lot of the time. How I wish I could have seen what was going on under the surface! At one point, in true minke fashion, the whale surfaced right near the boat! Minke whales are known to be quite curious. Perhaps he was curious about the orcas and also about the very excited onlookers on the boat. Whatever the case, it was a beautiful evening and so special to see an incredible inter species interaction. Here are some images from our voyages yesterday:

K40 “Raggedy” shows off her nicks:

Helloooo minke whale!:

~Katie

July 25th proved to be yet another outstanding day out on the water (wow, I bet people are getting tired of me saying that). We first encountered the whales along the bluffs of South Pender Island up in Canada. At first I identified mostly J pod whales - J1 “Ruffles”, J19 “Shachi”, J41 “Eclipse”, J8 “Spieden”, and some of the J16’s. Then I noticed the J16’s were swimming with some of the L12’s! We continued to watch them swim toward us until they surfaced one last time and went down for a long dive. We waited for about six minutes when the whales finally popped up off our bow. They were swimming in every direction imaginable! It was almost as if they were having a conference as to what they were going to do next and no one could quite make up their minds. Then after a spell of indecision, the J’s continued to swim north while the L’s decided to go south… or so we thought. The L12’s surfaced south bound several times until they came up again and were pointed west. Then they did another long dive after which they came up and were moving slowly north again. Another long dive and they were slowly west bound. Another dive before they were porpoising south at very high speed. Wow! Can these whales make up their minds?! Not yet! Ooops, nope, no more high speed swimming, now just slowly swimming south. Yikes! Detour! School of salmon! Everyone STOP, dinner time! Ok, fishing done and moving again now in a tight group at medium speed. Nope, put on the after-burners again! High speed toward Turn Point!

BREACH!

TAIL-LOB!

BREACH AGAIN!

Usually the orcas are fairly predictable in their movements, but as you can see, today was particularly confusing! I was cracking up as I listened to Captain Ivan talk on the radio trying to relay to the other captains what the whales were doing. Every time Ivan told the other captains one thing, the whales would surface and totally rebuff his previous statements and he would have to correct himself. He was beginning to sound like an announcer at a very exciting sporting event! Wow, what an exciting day. Never a dull moment around here - oh and, in case you’re wondering, the whales decided to go south

~Katie

While adult males with their impressive six-foot dorsal fins are a sight to see, it’s also special to see a productive family group like the one we saw today. So many young whales and their moms indicate what will hopefully be a positive future for this population of orcas!

Yesterday, July 24th, we had two outstanding trips on the Western Explorer. Not only was the weather absolutely beyond stellar, but we had two amazing encounters with the orcas. On our morning trip, we cruised into Canada and Swanson Channel to catch up with J pod. When we arrived, we noticed there were two tight bunches of whales and they were resting! Resting has to be one of my favorite behaviors to witness - the orcas bunch so close together it seems like they are all touching each other and they all come up to breathe at about the same time and they all dive at about the same time. It’s really and incredible sight to see 30+ whales swimming in unison. Of course the really interesting thing about resting whales is that they can’t go completely to sleep like we can. Whales, dolphins, and porpoises (collectively known as cetaceans) are involuntary air breathers - they have to think about their breathing ALL the time. Because of this, they must stay somewhat alert when they sleep to remember to come to the surface for air. Now here is the really bizarre part: cetaceans rest one half of their brain at a time in order to stay slightly alert when they sleep! They perhaps experience more of a meditative state if you want to think of it that way. While watching J pod rest in Swanson Channel, Captain Ivan and I were thinking that many more whales were present than just J pod. We were right! Up to the surface comes L72 “Racer”, L95 “Nigel”, L105 “Fluke”, L53 “Lulu”, L5 “Tanya”, L84 “Nyssa”, and I’m pretty sure I saw L54 “Ino” swimming with all of her kids. WOW! Perhaps over 40 whales resting in a tight group and we were the ONLY whale watch boat with them. To those of you who whale watch here in the San Juans frequently, you know what a very rare treat this is. All the other whale watch boats were with other members of L pod on the west side of San Juan Island. We followed the resting whales almost to Active Pass which is at the very edge of our range. What a spectacular morning!

On our afternoon trip, we met up with a small sub-group of L pod in Boundary Pass. The water was glassy calm, Mount Baker was displaying it’s full brilliance, and what were the orcas doing? Resting! Two trips with two different groups of resting whales. That’s a first for me. I didn’t get any good identification shots of the whales, but I’m pretty sure it was L55 “Nugget” and all of her close family. I may not have taken any good ID pictures, but WOW did these whales allow for some stunning photo ops in front of Mount Baker!:

We also saw lots of other animals today including bald eagles, harbor porpoise, and harbor seals with their new pups!

~Katie

Our trip today took us into Canada….eh?

We found ourselves cruising along the shore of Pender Island and J pod was hunting for fish along the rocky cliffs.  This day on the water was so different from yesterday as far as flat seas and warm light winds.  What perfect conditions for enjoying wildlife….especially our Southern Resident Orca whales!  There were a few “baby” breaches and spy hops, from one of the younger members of the J clan.  Doublestuff, one of the maturing males (now twelve years old) was doing some fancy foraging with many quick turns and dives.  After a great hour of watching the resident whales we turned and headed back for home waters.  We almost flew across Boundary Pass as the water was so flat.  We did have a few chances to see some regal Bald eages, some Harbor seals and then, a quick trip to Green Point on Spieden Island allowed us to see the Mouflon rams and ewes up on the hillside.  Another great day on the water and aboard the Western Prince II.

~ Nan

Yesterday afternoon we encountered part of J pod near South Pender Island. The whales were mostly in tight groups and were hanging out in the tide rips just off the end of the island. Tide rips are a great place for the orcas to hang out because many salmon tend to school up in the currents therefore making a great hunting spot. We watched the whales swim back and forth through the turbulent currents chasing down fish - better than a chase scene in a movie as far as I’m concerned! It would be so amazing to see what was going on under there. Every now and then, the whales would display a behavior that a few of us call “sharking” - when just the tip of their fin sticks out of the water as they chase a fish or swim at high speed. It’s really quite impressive. We also saw a few spyhops and cartwheels (when a whale explosively throws the back two thirds of it’s body out of the water including the tail - think of it as a backwards breach). One of the guests on my trip asked me, “why do they do cartwheels?” - it’s probably one of those questions that we will never know the true answer to, but here are some thoughts: Perhaps they do it just for fun (it looks like fun to me), maybe it’s for communication (it makes a pretty loud noise when six tons of whale crashes down on the surface of the water), or maybe it allows them to change direction quickly. I kind of like the last idea because when they are chasing fish, they have to be pretty agile and quick to catch up to their dinner. If a salmon makes an extreme direction change while being chased, wouldn’t it be easier for a whale to throw the latter 2/3rds of it’s body out of the water to also make the same quick direction change? Air has much less resistance than water - especially when you weigh six tons! I suppose we’ll never know for sure, but it’s a nice idea.

On the way back to Friday Harbor, we found some other great wildlife in Boundary Pass andoff the Cactus Islands including harbor porpoise, bald eagles, and harbor seals. It’s pupping season for the harbor seals and we saw a few little ones swimming around with their moms.

I didn’t catch any pictures from today, but I am posting a picture of J37 “Hy’Shqa” demonstrating a great cartwheel so you can get a better idea of what it looks like:

Yet another fantastic summer day!

~Katie

Sunday was a fabulous day out on the water despite the foggy weather we’ve been having lately. J pod and most of L pod met up in the morning in Boundary Pass and then proceeded to play and socialize. All the J’s and L’s remained mixed in little play groups for much of the day. We saw lots of acrobatics - breaches, spyhops, tail-lobs, and pec slaps as well as much tactile and mating behavior. Near the end of our first trip I spied J26 “Mike” chasing L27 “Ophelia” around. At one point they were just under the surface of the water. We could tell that one or both of them were upside down because all we could see was the white of their bellies. What’s going on under there? On both trips we saw J8 “Spieden” and it seemed like she was always surrounded by groups of young “sprouter” males. Hmmm, makes me want to know if she’s not the whale version of a “cougar”? Near the end of our second trip, we had a beautiful encounter with L82 “Kasatka”. She surfaced not too far from the boat and allowed us some great looks!

Katie

I normally associate foggy mornings with August, but we’ve already had several foggy days so far this July. It was pretty patchy fog today, so as we cruised up San Juan Channel we were enjoying the sunshine, and when we got near the whales at first we got to watch them emerging from the fog, which was neat. As they continued north towards us, however, the fog seemed to follow them and soon we were encircled with fog too!

Some people might think viewing whales in the fog is less fun than in the sun, but we actually have some pretty spectacular encounters with the whales in the fog and in addition to providing conditions for some interesting photographs to me it always make the experience seem almost more magical.

Today we caught up with part of J-Pod and the first whales we saw were J1 Ruffles, J2 Granny, and the J14 family group. Here from left to right are J1 Ruffles, J14 Samish, and J30 Riptide:

J Pod….where are you???  This morning’s trip took us north in whale search mode.  It took an hour to discover the whales were way up to the north, and out of our range, but we had a great cruise with lots of opportunity to see Bald eagles, Harbor seals, many sea birds and enjoyed the sunshine lighting up our way through the islands.

In the afternoon we headed back to the north and hoped that we would be able to spend time with J Pod …..knowing that they needed to make their way south to be in our range.  YES!  After a good hour of traveling we were able to see the fins cutting through the waters of Georgia Strait!  First we had two females foraging and traveling along.  Luckily, along came Princess Angeline, and her daughter and grand daughter!  The calf started breaching and breaching!  What fun!  Then the speed picked up and the whales started rocketing across the strait toward the Canadian Gulf Island shores.

By the time we needed to start back toward Friday Harbor, along came the rest of J Pod.  Granny, Ruffles, Mike, Riptide….to name a few.  It was almost as if we had to stop and wait on the Georgia Strait highway as each sub family took their time to pass by us.  What a wonderful afternoon out on the water….oh, and did I mention….it was sunny?  AND the water was flat and almost calm?

~ Nan

Yesterday was a bit of a rolly and breezy afternoon out on the west side with J pod. When we saw the whales in the morning, they were in a tight resting group and we were able to see loads of spyhops and tail-lobs. We also saw a few baby belly-flops. But after a bit of travel and rest time, the whales were very spread out and on the hunt for salmon.The first couple of whales we encountered were playing hide-and-seek with us. Just when we thought we would get to see them, they would go down for a long dive and tease us… until we found J27 “Blackberry”! We had some wonderful looks at this big fellow as he cruised along the outside of the pod. Near the end of the trip, we found J26 “Mike” fishing with his family just off false bay. His kid sister, J42 “Echo”, was in a very spunky mood while she fished - she did a nice belly-flop at one point and then performed a few impressive cartwheels. I guess she likes to make fishing fun!

~Katie

Well, Mother Nature must have had some wind leftover from the winter spoiling in the pantry, so she decided to use it up today.  Fortunately for us, by the time we got out to the west side of San Juan to view the whales, the winds had abated somewhat and the seas were fairly calm.  Just in time to see our wonderful whales of J-Pod.  We thought we only had one or two whales near Kellett Bluff and so we waited to see who else might be around when suddenly the waters fairly sprouted 8-10 more whales that had been on a long dive!  J1 Ruffles was once again leading the pack, right next to J2 Granny (what a good son!)  We also saw J19 and her calf, J30 (a sprouter male that is getting huge!), J27 Blackberry, J8 Speiden (with her small dorsal fin and very distinctive blow!)  The whales didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry, and spent their time searching the tidal rips for something to munch on, and play around with each other.  Soon we found ourselves just north of the Turn Point Lighthouse in the very cool upwellings, and we waited for the whales to arrive.  And waited. And waited.  And as I like to say on the boat, patience is usually rewarded, and boy was it!  The whales had been fairly spread out before the lighthouse, and maybe it was the strong currents, but soon we had 12-15 whales coming up in a large group!  A few cartwheels (by the whales, not the naturalists) were followed by some huge pectoral fin slaps by none other than J1 Ruffles!  And then little J45 decided he’d show Ruffles how to do some pretty impressive breaches (4 of them to be exact)–full height followed by a landing on the belly!  It was the perfect ending to a picture-perfect summer day.

We had two trips aboard the Western Explorer, and you never know what to expect when you come to work.  We had some unseasonably strong winds blowing, and we had some early reports of whales, but we weren’t sure where to head.  So off we went in search of wildlife, and hoped that the whales would head up island to calmer waters.  And soon we were passing through Speiden Channel and fortunately for us, the whales decided to head in that same direction, and we found a nice group of whales just north of Battleship Island.  Even from 1/2 mile away, we were able to pick out J1 Ruffles.  Our passengers were amazed that I could ID a whale from that far away–well, until I told them how I did it.  That dorsal fin is mighty distinctive.  And soon we were close enough that they could see his wavy fin, along with Granny J2’s nicked dorsal fin.  Following behind J1 & J2 were about 6-8 more individuals, and we were privileged enough to see several breaches, tail lobs, and a spyhop.  We had a passenger on board who had never ever been on a boat before, and while she was scared at first, by the end of the trip she was smiling and told me “I’m definitely coming back to do this again!”  Ah the magic of orcas.

Our afternoon trip had us in a quandry as we had two groups of whales within our reach.  One quite far away but in calm water, or a close group in choppier water.  So we decided to let the whales make the decision for us.  We decided to go to Flattop Island first and view some bald eagles.  It was amazing–there must have been 8 eagles competing for a carcass right on the waterline.  One would swoop in and chase the others off, only to be chased off himself.  We watched for awhile and then decided to head out to see the whales.  And wouldn’t you know it, the whales made the decision for us and were right between Kellett Bluff and Stuart Island, in fairly calm waters.

It was amazing.  We had the L32s and L12s foraging in the currents.  At one time we had 4 whales tail-lobbing at the same time.  Lots of back and forth directional changes.  And even better, the sun was shining and the waters were fairly calm.  But best of all, it was like we were having our own private wildlife experience as we were the only boat with this group.  I think in the hour we were on-scene, the whales moved less than 1/2 mile total.  We saw L85, L79, L41, L12, L25 all working the current lines.  Several breaches, including one by L79 (I’m about 80% sure), spyhops, and tons of tail lobs.  Too soon it was time to head back to reality, and we were all happy and content to have shared some time with these amazing creatures.

Another beautiful day in the sunny San Juans and an opportunity to see J Pod on both of our trips today!  This morning we headed north and found J Pod foraging off the west side of San Juan Island.  J-27, Blackberry and sibling Mako made some very exciting passes while they were foraging in the choppy water.  It was such fun to watch these incredible hunters as they chased the fish we could only imagine.

This afternoon we headed south and out through the amazing tidal currents in Cattle Pass.  On the west side we found water conditions that changed from calm to choppy, to calm, to dancing current and back to calm.  This time we found J Pod up past the lighthouse, and just as we arrived they seemed to group up, start rocketing south, then stopped and swirled around with some definite breeding behavior.  There were lots of tail slaps and pec slaps, and then the breaching began!  What a lot of Orca energy out there this afternoon!

As we continued north Granny and Ruffles cruised by as they headed out into Haro Strait.  On the way back to Friday Harbor we found lots of Harbor seals hauled out and two new pups near their moms.  There were Harlequin ducks bobbing about the rocky shore and a group of Pigeon Guillemonts.  The Mouflon sheep were grazing the side of Spieden Island and a pair of Bald eagles watched us from high in on a tree top.

Our ride down San Juan Channel was breezy and cool.  What happend to summer?  How did we switch back to hot chocolate weather so fast?

~Nan

You couldn’t ask for a better view of an orca than this one we got right here:

We’re definitely in the middle of harbor seal pupping season right now as well, as on the way home we saw about five mom and pup pairs. I’ll have to try and get a better picture of them at some point - we give them a wide berth when they’re hauled out and the ones in the water were too quick for me today, but they sure are cute!

What a day full of surprises!  Our trip today took us to the west side of San Juan Island.  It was so good to be moving through the water as it was so hot at the dock.  We rounded the southern tip of San Juan Island and as we headed north the first thing we saw breaking the surface was a Steller sealion!  This was remarkable as these very large sealions move back out to the breeding grounds during the month of May.  But wait!  It’s July!  We got a few really good looks as the sealion headed out toward Salmon Bank.  We continued up island and there we found two Minke whales slowing making their way north in the comany of 21 year old L pod male, Gaia!  How do these baleen feeding Minke whales keep company with an Orca whale, when a Transient Orca whale would be seeking out the Minke as prey???  But our Southern Resident fish eating Orca whales…well, “No Fear” I guess is the answer.

The water was flat today, great for viewing all wildlife.  Later in our trip we had great views of Harbor seals, and lots of sea birds.  It was so plesant on the water that it was hard to remember that upon reaching the dock it would once again be 90 degrees!  This is a virtual heat wave for the San Juan Islands!

~Nan