Anacortes – La Conner – Port Angeles
Anacortes AM
It was hot on the dock, but nature’s air conditioning kicked in quickly as we left the dock started to feel the cool breeze off the water. Our wildlife sightings started early with a bald eagle perched atop the Bell Rock channel marker and harbor seals and black oystercatchers at Bird Rocks. The south end of Lopez Island yielded even more with a sunning turkey vulture, pigeon guillemots, and another bald eagle. A few of our young passengers even spotted a few black-tailed deer! We continued on into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, catching a quick glimpse or two of a feeding minke whale. With long dives, the minkes proved elusive, but we got a report of orcas farther south so we pressed on toward Coyote Bank where we were rewarded handsomely for our patience by one of the most energetic orca displays I’ve ever seen! We identified the some of the whales as the mammal-eating T37, T34, and an unusual individual for these waters – T73B, a male normally found near Juneau, Alaska! The building wind and waves made for perfect play conditions and some of the youngsters in the group took advantage by surfing and breaching up a storm! This continued for nearly 30 minutes – incredible! We stayed until the group finally entered a resting mode and bid them farewell. After a final stop at Smith Island to check a tufted puffin off our list, we returned to the dock with plenty of time to enjoy the rest of a beautiful sunny day!
-Erin
Anacortes PM
-Tyson
La Conner
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Crystal clear skies as we left the dock this morning and
made our way south down the Swinomish Slough. There were flocks of hundreds of
Glaucous-winged gulls, dozens of great blue herons, and a dozen bald eagles of
various ages spotted as we made our way to Deception Pass. There were a number
of harbor seals hauled out at seal rocks, including several mom and pup pairs.
We stopped in Canoe Pass and watched the pigeon guillemots successfully hunt
for fish, and also checked out a curious harbor seal eyeing us from the
turquoise waters. From there it was on to Minor Island where we found nesting
double-crested cormorants, half a dozen bald eagles, more harbor seals, and a
tufted puffin! Our journey took us far west, out to Coyote Bank where we met up
with a t-party of orca whales. The T34s, T37, T37As, and others were in
attendance. They seemed to be in an incredibly curious and playful mood. The
juveniles of the group were repeatedly breaching for minutes on-end, as if trying
to out-shine each other. Their agility and stamina was something to be admired.
Meanwhile, some of the older members of the pod were surfing the swell that was
growing in the Strait. We said goodbye to the party and made our way back to
the east. We spotted several minkes on the route home, but only one of them
cooperated long enough for us to get some good looks. It was lunge feeding near
Whale Rocks, lined up perfectly with Mount Baker which loomed in the
background. There was one lone male Steller sea lion stretched out on Whale
Rocks, with many harbor seals chilling in the shallows beneath him. We cruised
along the southern Lopez coastline on our way back to the pass. We spotted
several more eagles, and harbor seal pups along the way. Once we passed back
under the Deception Pass bridge, we picked up the crab pot we deployed earlier
on in the trip. There were several Dungeness and Red Rock crabs clustered
within, so we tallied the genders of each for the scientific survey before
releasing them back to the sea.
– Sam
Port Angeles AM
Our wildlife tour started off witha bang. We had 8 river otters cruising around Ediz Hook a rare and abundant encounter. Rounding the tip of Ediz Hook we had a group of Harbor Seals hauled out and just as many in the water. We headed east with tips on orcas heading our way. We had some great looks at the Olympics as the morning fog lifted and we aimed towards Mt Baker in the distance. Our orcas turned out to be Transient orcas our marine mammal eating orcas. We had a nice group of about 8 animals with some juveniles in the mix and one large male. We traveled along with them watching the juveniles play as they traveled. As more boats came on scene and the orcas headed north we broke off to go look for more wildlife. We encountered a humpback whale feeding near Constance Bank and a 2nd one was not far off. We tried keeping up with these two but they had sporadic down times and unpredictable surfacings. We still got some great looks at their huge flukes. Just as we were about to leave our humpback decided he wanted us to stay and breached so we waited and were not disappointed. He breached over and over for us showing us chin slaps. At one point he rolled onto his back slapping back pectoral fins over and over. Not to give up he he started tail lobbing and even did a headstand. After he settled down we had one more treat…. BCX1057 Divot and her new calf Olympus. They were slowly moving against the ebb tide and Olympus did some peeking at us with his cute little face. It appeared that he was trying to get his mom to nurse him as he kept nuzzling her. We had the most fantastic time watching this mom/calf pair. It was hard to tear ourselves away but eventually we had to return to port. For our first time whale watchers it was a trip they might find hard to top!!!!
– Lee
Port Angeles PM
We had a great day out on the water, even if a little sporty! We had whale reports right out of the harbor and so we decided to make a run out towards Hein Banks, which was a great decision becauuuuuuuuse we found a fun little group of transient orcas!!! This group included several females, one large male and one calf. When we arrived there was lots of splashing going on, as well as fin slapping. The group was cruising along and switching directions fairly often, and just giving us lots of good shots of their tail flukes and faces while they were playing. We watched this group for quite some time, then decided to fight the wind westward towards Race Rocks. We didn’t actually end up making it though because we encountered a humpback whale on the way out! We got some really good close surfaces from this whale as well as a fluke or two (ALWAYS when naturalist is looking the other way!) but we got a great show from that whale. Since we had spent a good amount of time with that animal by that point we decided to head back to port. We really had a good day, and are very excited about our double-header!
-McKenna
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