Whale Watching Report

We lucked out on the weather today. Somehow we avoided any rain, and the sun even came out. Captain Shane spotted the first couple of gray whales of our trip at the north end of Hat Island. It turned out to be #49, Patch, and #53. The wind was brisk and the waves forced these two gray whales to raise their heads high out of the water on several occasions when they surfaced to breath. They circled around a couple of times as we watched them, and they gave us many good, close up, views. Next we decided to move northward, where we found three more gray whales just offshore from Langley on Whidbey Island. Another whale watching boat was watching these whales when we arrived. I was able to identify two of the three to be #22, and #531. All three were surfacing very close to each other as they swam slowly toward Camano Island. Just before we left the scene two of the three whales raised their tail flukes high into the air as if to wave goodbye! Next we cruised around Camano Head to look at the bald eagle's nest there, and it looked like the female bald eagle was incubating her eggs. On our way back home we were in for another treat as we spotted gray whales #49 and #53 yet again! We watched them for a few more minutes and then we drove over to look at a California sea lion resting on a channel marker. We circled him once, but he barely seemed to take notice of our 100 foot long boat close by. It was definitely an action packed trip for us today, so much so that we got back to the dock a little later than usual in order to take it all in. Naturalist Bart Rulon