First 5 shots are from Saturday May 10th with a gray pair traveling together. PC: Lincoln Humphry
The last 4 are from Mothers Day Sunday, with the T124A2s and T87. PC: Kurt Leipold
May 9th
We went through the middle of the Islands, and through Spieden Channel to watch a humpback on the west side of San Juan Island. It was flat, calm, and beautiful on the water. The humpback turned out to be Divot, Big Mama’s first calf she brought to the Salish Sea in 2003. She’s an icon!
On our way back, we went down Hail Pass and passengers spotted a gray whale. It was very active and was traveling in a big circle at the top of Hail. Captain Michael angled the boat and timed the surfacing perfectly so we could see this gray right underneath Mount Baker!
May 10th
We started out seeing the classic harbor seals on Eliza rocks, and then spotted Steller sea lions on a navigation marker fighting for a spot. It’s always fun to watch them jockeying for position. They got pretty aggressive.
We also got to see two gray whales traveling north in Rosario, with many tail flukes! A rare sight. These grays were very active, giving us reliable tail fluke shots every other surfacing or so. We were also able to identify that one of the gray whales was the one we hung out with yesterday!
We saw their tails and dorsal ridge so much we could eventually discover their differences and identify them from one another. It was a unique sighting experience.
May 11th
It was a lovely Mother’s Day with excellent multiple sightings of two different species.
First we saw some Biggs by Samish and Guemes Islands. We identified T87 Harbeson with his massive dorsel fin, who was traveling with the T124A2 pod. We got to see a few tail lobs, and some harbor seal hunting.
We then saw a humpback by Strawberry and Cypress Islands. It gave us some good flukes, and passed under the boat, which is always wild, but especially with the bigger slower whales. An unreal experience.
May 12th
We watched a Minke on the west side of Lummi, which is an unusual spot for Minkes. Minkes tend to be pretty illusive, and while it only surfaced very quickly, it did surface often, so it was cool to get lots of sightings of this rarer species.
There were 4 sea lions on a navigation marker, with one large one hogging the middle.
We then went to a report of humpbacks up north in the Strait of Georgia by Patos Island. We ID’d that it was Divot again, a and an unknown friend. We got flukes from Divot as they surfaced together, but the other whale never fluked.
