Anacortes and Port Angeles
Anacortes
With a heavy fog bank blowing through the area and blue skies to the north we decided to start our trip along the back side of Guemes island. We headed from there to Peapod rocks where we made our first wildlife stop to check out the critters on the rocks and watch the fog blow away. We found a few harbor seals at first and a lone adult bald eagle was perched high on the island. As we rounded the island we found a few more big groups of harbor seals hauled out of the water. From there we cruised to the heart of the San Juan islands through Peavine into San Juan channel, finally joining the T137 Biggs orca whales in Griffin bay. At first I T137A “Jack” was missing but he soon joined the rest of the pod as some hunting behaviors started to occur. We reached dinner island and that is when it became clear that hunting lesson were being given by mom and T137D “Wright” was honing it’s skills on the different sea birds in the water. It was a great show but after a while the whales waved goodbye and we continued our search for more wildlife. We headed down through Cattle pass and made our next stop at Whale rocks which was covered and surrounded by dozens of Steller sea lions. Most of the ones on shore were napping but a few bigger sea lions were getting a little snappy with one another. Captain Carl found us a humpback whale after that on McArthur bank doing some big feeding circles. It turned out to be MMX0006, a humpback that has been found in the Strait of Juan de Fuca a few times this season. We got some great looks and even had a few fluke shots before heading back to the east. We cruised between Castle rock and Lopez island where we found a great blue heron, before we picked up speed and headed back toward Anacortes. We had some amazing conditions this morning and the fog cleared out very quick which only helped boost the beauty of the area. It was a great day with two whale species and all sorts of wildlife!!!
-Tyson
Port Angeles
We got to watch an oil response drill out in the harbor today as we left the dock. Harbor seals were aplenty at Ediz Hook hauled out and staying warm with one sea lion in the water.. A lone curlew flew overhead.We headed northeast for a bit before making a northwest turn to find our first whales of the day. We found about 6 humpback whales just southeast of Race Rocks but one caught our eye and we spent our time with him. It was a young whale ID’d as MMZ0030. It turned out he was in the mood for play as he started kelping in the bullwhip kelp and rolling around on his back. Then to our surprise he started playing with a log balancing on his rostrum and back. It was a pretty unique sight. When we finally left him we headed oer to Race rocks where we saw a lot more harbor seals hauled out. There were loads of steller and california sea lions resting on the rocks. We had a bonus finding Ollie the Sea Otter in the kelp bed sleeping on his back. After race rocks we headed to Victoria where we got to watch two Transient or marine mammal eating orcas in a sleepy mode. The Two were T60 D a 15 year old and his 11 year old brother T60E. A ot of red necked phalaropes were also seen. We turned our sights south as we headed back across the straights still in search of whales. It wasn’t until we were just east of Port Angeles that Capt Tyler spotted a blow in the distance very close to shore. It looked suspiciously like a gray whale. When we arrived on scene we found a gray whale feeding near the shoreline, one not in our ID guide. After watching this whale for awhile we finally had to call it a day but not after having the rare but always fun triple header.
-Lee
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