The T77’s in San Juan Channel on 7/11 by Lincoln Humphry
July 7th
No early reports today, so Captain Michael spread out to cover different ground from the rest of the PWWA and our sister boats.
We started off at Eliza Rocks, where there were quite a few mom and baby pairs resting at the tide line. We continued on around the south side of Sinclair and past Towhead Island to give Rosario Strait a good scan. When we reached obstruction Pass, we got a call from Captain Jeff that he had found a humpback whale up by Point Roberts! We changed direction to start heading north.
The trip was glass calm, and very sunny today, with plenty of busy harbor porpoise surfing the tidal exchange from Point Lawrence on Orcas all the way up to Point Roberts. We even saw the harbor porpoise and humpback fishing for the same bait ball. While we saw many tail flukes from our humpback today, the angle was unfortunately never quite right to see the full underside for an ID. The whale was being pretty interesting with many shallow dives, allowing us to see it just under the water as it created footprints at the surface.
As we left the whale behind, we still saw a lot more harbor porpoise all throughout the journey home. We stopped at the Point Migley buoy to watch 3 stellar sea lions taking a nap. One poor little guy was being used as a flipper rest and kept almost getting knocked off. He readjusted and found almost stable space before we departed. Overall, a beautiful day on the water.
July 8th
We had an awesome day on the water today, with early reports of whales very close by. With a full boat, we took our time looking at harbor seals and their pups on Viti Rocks, as well as an eagle getting chased off the refuge marker by a massive flock of gulls. We made our standard stop to the Sinclair buoy, where two sleepy juvenile Steller sea lions looked like they had been having a very long, comfortable rest. The sea lions were incredibly dry and fluffy looking, really showing off their golden coats.
After a wide trip and barnes and clark islands to be able to look at the scenery and get everyone through the lunch line before whales, we circled back to Pt Lawrence and the Peapod Rocks off the south side of Orcas Island. We met up with the T46Bs cruising through the massive amount of current at the Peapod Rocks. With slow speeds, they turned north up to Clark and Barnes Islands where they had a change in behavior and started to hunt for their own lunch! We were able to watch them lunge and catch a harbor porpoise, coming up behind our boat with a chunk in one of their mouths. The pod was busy tail slapping to stun their prey, doing headstands and spy hops for looking around, as well as few full body barrel rolls at the surface. The whales stayed in the overall same location for quite a long time, having lunch and some fun!
July 9
We did our due diligence today scanning as much water as we could today! Our day started off a bit wet, but the weather took a turn for the best as our day continued. We started our day off with three eagles at Viti Rocks causing a ruckus with all the gulls and cormorants. So beautiful to see their massive 6ft wingspan. We kept cruising west into Rosario Strait, first making a pit stop to some sleepy sea lions on the Sinclair buoy. They gave us great looks at those massive fore and hind flippers of theirs as they napped in the mist.
Heading into Peavine Pass we got a great look at another eagle perched in a tree, the perfect grounds to spot fish down below. It’s always fun going through the heart of the San Juan Islands as you get to see so many smaller islands usually not visible by the ferry. We headed into Harney Channel and then north through San Juan Channel. We headed west to give Spiden Island a good look. There were some larger birds of prey circling high above the trees, most likely turkey vultures. We scanned south into Harro Strait for any critters but continued north hearing some reports of humpbacks whales in Swanson Channel.
We finally made it on scene for some amazing looks at Olympus and her first calf Stromboli!! Olympus is one of Big Mamas grandkids, making Stromboli a great grandbaby. It’s always great to be able to hang out with part of Big Mamas lineage. Olympus and Stromboli gave us great looks at their flukes, their powerful spouts and the closeness of their mom and calf bond, surfacing near each other and swimming alongside one another the entire time.
July 10
As we left the dock we got reports this morning of whales south of Salmon Bank near Cattle Pass. It was beautiful the entire way there, and we got sneak peeks of harbor seals, sea lions, etc. on our journey. We went through the middle, then headed south down San Juan Channel. We intercepted our orca friends on the west side of San Juan, and hung out with the T75s for quite some time.
T75A has a massive dorsal fin, so he was really easy to see and identify. We were with four whales total, T75, T75A, T75C, and T75C3. It’s always fun when there is a mix of sizes in the group, because comparing the male to the younger juvenile is so impressive. They ventured pass Lime Kiln on the West side of San Juan, and at the end they were giving us great looks. We decided to go over the top to go home and actually came across a humpback whale! Always so so lucky to have two species in one day, and 5 whales total!
July 11th
We diverted in our normal route today and instead went to a different marker north of Sinclair, and I’m glad we did! There were many Stellers hauled out, and one trying to fight for space from the water. The current was running so hard that it made it difficult to pop up there, but he eventually tried and took another one down with him. So fun to watch. Those sea lions have a lot of personality. They kept sticking their heads up out of the water and peering at us as the current was messing with their swimming. We then took a turn and ventured to the North Peapod rock where we saw two bald eagles, an adult and an adolescent. On the middle pea pod rock, there were probably 100 harbor seals out and about! There were pups mixed up in the group and there were many on the shore and in the water.
We went through Peavine Pass where we saw pigeon guillemots and lots of bull kelp, and slowly made our way to San Juan Channel. There, we met up with the T77s. We were lucky enough to spend an hour and a half with them, and watched what we thought might have been hunting. Great looks at the eye patches and saddle patches. On our way back from over the top of Orcas Island, we saw quite a few harbor porpoise and also more Stellers at the marker north of Lummi Island.
July 12th
We started out the day with very favorable reports of a T-party of Bigg’s orca whales close by! Captain Casey chose to go up Hale Pass to meet up with them, so we started off the morning looking at harbor porpoise and Steller sea lions off the Point Migley buoy. The stellers were very busy playing keep away from one particular sea lion, and kept shifting around the buoy to keep him off. The sea lion in the water was not giving up, and kept circling the buoy until he managed to hop up and secure some space! Very entertaining to watch.
When we made it up to our T-Party, we were on the north side of Sucia and got to watch the T46Bs, T77s and T99s. The group kept changing up activity, traveling with some deep dives until they decided it was social time. The orcas were busy with lots of surface activity and were even tail slapping in sync! We watched some of the youngsters breach, and lots of rolling activity so we could see bellies of most of the group. This T-party was 13-17 whales (incredibly hard to count them all as they surfaced) and gave us a spectacular show. After being on scene with this group for a bit, we actually lucked out with a second report of ANOTHER T-party just a little bit further north. Since the day was so hot, we took the opportunity to turn away and bring the boat back up to speed to try to cool off the vessel while we ventured toward the other pods.
We made it on scene with our 2nd T-party of the day, a rare occurrence, up beyond Patos island into Boundary Pass. This group was the T49A’s, T36A’s and at least T37A1 from the T37A pod. This group was a bit more spread out from our earlier whales, but we watched some incredible lunging and high back arching happening, especially from the males. There was one very large male with this group that we got amazing close looks at his wobbly dorsal fin. He spent a lot of time at the surface, making some quick turns, really showing off his agility. This group of whales was about 10 animals, so overall today we saw an amazing number of orcas pretty close together!
1st T-Party: T37A1, T49A’s, T36A’s
2nd T-Party: T46B’s, T77’s, T99’s
