June 1

An interesting day with humpbacks, Divot and her new calf by Lopez Island.
After getting one of our standard starts to the tour with looks at Steller sea lions on a buoy, we made our way to Lopez Channel where we came on scene with the pair of humpbacks.

The calf was incredibly active and rolling around, doing a lot of tail lobs and little half cartwheels out of the water.  showing us pectoral fin slaps and tail slaps. Exciting to see the youthful energy,  as humpbacks can often be relatively mellow. Once the humpbacks started to move into a more feeding type of activity, we saw longer down times, but many views of both mom + calf tail flukes. We had a fun hour with them.

On our return, we saw some Stellers posturing and even a sea otter out in the water!

June 2

Rough seas and rainy weather sent us north to Alden Bank to find calmer water and look for the baleens who frequent the area.
We stopped at Viti Rocks and saw a few harbor seals, and moved to the buoy marker out near Boulder Reef.
There were 5 Steller sea lions on the buoy, with one in the wakes trying to jump up and join the others.
As we continued north, we were all scanning for baleen whales. Captain Jeff spotted a blow out over Alden Bank, and we were able to watch a gray whale for close to an hour.