Pacific Whale Watch Association

9/12/2010: The cloudy conditions today made for great wildlife spotting on the water. Our first whale of the day was a minke whale just off Lopez Island. This whale was feeding among many birds and bait balls and she was very cooperative. Next we worked our way out toward Victoria and spotted many harbor porpoises, and some harbor seals along the way. Eventually we found two humpback whales swimming together. It was the same two humpback whales we watched yesterday; a female and a youngster. They were very playful when we first arrived.

9/11/2010: We headed southwest for our trip today. Our first whale spotting was just west of Hein Bank where we found a very cooperative minke whale that gave us lots of great, close-up, viewing. It was calm enough out that we could also smell this whale. Next we cruised all the way over toward Port Angeles, and along the way we spotted another minke whale, but we didn't stop because we had four humpback whales nearby that we wanted to visit. We eventually reached the humpbacks. The first two whales were two adults that showed their tail flukes, one right after another, for deep dives.

8/28/2010: We started our journey today by venturing through the inner San Juan Islands. We spotted harbor seals in a few different spots along the way. Next we exited the San Juans through Cattle Pass and then we headed northwest and found orcas along the west side of San Juan Island. It was J-pod and K-pod orcas. The first few whales we spotted were J26, Mike, K22, Sekiu, and K33 Tika. They gave us some great viewing as they came up together. We also spotted a larger group closer to shore including J27, Blackberry, J34, Doublestuf, J28, Polaris, J46, and others.

7/29/2010: We took a route through the inner islands to begin today's trip again today. Our widlife viewing started at Blakely Island where we spotted two bald eagles and a turkey vulture on the shoreline. The way they were gathered made it look like they were feeding on something but we couldn't see what it was. Not far away we spotted several harbor seals hauled out along the rocks. There were a few seal pups in this group. We found the orcas today just as we crossed the Canadian border near South Pender Island. The first three orcas we watched were K13, Skagit, K25, Scoter, and K34, Cali.

7/23/2010: We headed southward for our morning trip today. We found L-pod orcas just southeast of False Bay. It was L5, Tanya, L84, Nyssa, L54, Ino, L108, Coho, and others. They were all spread out and appeared to be hunting down salmon for the entire time we watched them. We spent most of our time with big Nyssa, Ino, and Coho during this trip. We went in a totally different direction for our afternoon trip. We heard that some other orcas were coming down from Canada so we decided to try and meet up with them.

We had our first superpod of the year today!! It rained on us most of the day but the whales didn't mind at all. Our viewing started at Colville Island where we spotted some harbor seals and a few harlequin ducks. A few minutes later we watched a black oystercatcher harass a bald eagle that was perched near his nest on Swirl Island. We caught up with a superpod of orcas near Lime Kiln park on the west side of San Juan Island. The orcas were milling around near the shoreline for most of our visit today. They seemed to be doing lots of socializing, and mating today.

We traveled southward for our trip today with word that some transient orcas were down near Whidbey Island. On our way to find them we spotted several animals including a great blue heron, bald eagle, and harbor seals. As we got within sight of the orcas near Eastern Bank we spotted a tufted puffin so we circled around to watch him for a while. Within minutes we were on scene with the transient orcas. They were swimming eastward toward Whidbey Island in a zig-zag manner.

Today's trip started with another sighting of a California sea lion hauled out on a Guemes Channel marker. Our next wildlife viewing was in Rosario Strait where we spotted several harbor porpoises. Next we stopped at Colville Island to view 40+ harbor seals hauled out on the rocks. We had a big group of bird watchers as passengers today and they must have brought us good bird luck because we spotted a pair of tufted puffins just after we watched the seals. A passenger asked me if this was a mated pair?

Some of our resident orcas came back for a visit today!! During the middle of the day yesterday we heard that some southern resident orcas were spotted way up off Campbell River in Canada heading south. So we decided to head north to start our trip, banking on the assumption that the orcas would keep heading southward toward us. On our way we spotted lots of wildlife through the inner islands including bald eagles, harbor porpoises, harbor seals, pacific loons, all three species of cormorants, pigeon guillemots, marbled murrelets and rhinoceros auklets.

Today's trip started with our usual sighting of two ospreys at their nest and a California sea lion on the first channel marker. There were lots of crab boats out today between Hat Island and Jetty Island so we had to travel a long ways to find a gray whale. We went all the way past Langley on Whidbey Island before we spotted a gray whale, but he gave us a great show. He started out showing his tail flukes on many occasions before he swam toward shallow water in front of Langley.