Whale Watching Report

The weather and sea conditions couldn't have been better than they were today. It was sunny and calm as a lake on the water everywhere we went. Our wildlife viewing got started before we even left the dock today. As our passengers entered the Island Explorer 3 a small family of three river otters jumped out of the water and on to the dock as everybody watched. Then a few minutes later as we cruised out of Cap Sante Marina we saw two common loons at close range. We worked our way around the south end of Lopez Island and slowed down to look at several harbor seals hauled out on the rocks in front of Colville Island. Soon after that we spotted a minke whale. We stopped to watch this whale as it surfaced several more times. Next we continued to cruise west toward Victoria. Along the way we saw hundreds of harbor porpoises, common murres, and gulls. At one point we spotted a Steller sea lion surfacing with a flock of gulls circling overhead! Just west of Victoria we arrived on scene with 5 transient orcas. T41, T109A, T109B and others were in this transient pod. They were all swimming closely together in a zigzag pattern. After our first viewing they went down for a longer dive. To our surprise they surfaced again right next to us. Everybody gasped as they came to the surface for air. They gave everyone superb views up close. We spent as much time as we could watching these transients as they surfaced for three or four more sequences before we had to say goodbye. We had traveled so far to find the orcas that we knew we would be arriving back late to the dock. I think everybody was happy to see the orcas though, since this group was the only group of orcas spotted all day. On our way back to the dock we saw many more harbor porpoises and even some Dall's porpoises. I'll take conditions like this any day of the week!! Naturalist Bart Rulon