Tuesday morning we left Seattle early and headed north to Anacortes for our whale watching tour. Although yesterday had been a beautiful, sunny day in Seattle, it had rained overnight and was overcast. It looked exactly as you might imagine a Washington day.
We had booked a cruise with Island Adventures based in Anacortes on Fidalgo Island and that turned out to be a great choice. Scott had investigated several companies and we had originally planned to use a company much farther south but turned out they didn’t sail that day so we changed plans, got up early and drove north instead. Good for us because this cruise was freakin’ awesome. They have a naturalist on board that was not the captain so instead of trying to explain wildlife while piloting the boat, he was free to mingle with passengers, answer questions, and talk about animals. There were also complimentary wildlife viewing guides for each passenger that explained information about the animals and area plus maps of the islands. Since we sailed out of Anacortes, we headed directly into the San Juan Islands instead of sailing north for a long time, so there was more time for wildlife viewing. Judging from the crew’s excitement, apparently we happened on an extraordinary animal day. Boo-yah! We saw many more types of animals than normal and a larger quantity of orcas than usual. Wicked!
We sailed south out of Anacortes and around the southern tip of Lopez Island where we saw two adult and two pup harbor seals on the rocks. Harbor seals spend most of their time in the water but sun themselves on rocky outcroppings. They eat 5-10% of their body weight each day of fish, crustaceans, squid, and octopus. 
We also saw turkey vultures eating something (gross), a two-year-old bald eagle on a rock (cool), cormorants, ducks, Canada goose, ducks, murrelet, and a sea star. The sea star was clinging to some rocks at the waterline and was bright purple.
We headed west around the bottom of Lopez and along the west coast of San Juan Island. As it turned north we encountered the “J” pod of southern resident orcas. Resident orcas are fish eating whales and their main diet is salmon with other types of fish as they find them. We spent some great time watching the whales in the pod and they were on the surface doing breaches, tail slaps, and spyhops. Scott got some great photos. 
The “L” pod of residents came south to meet up with the other pod and interact, to create a superpod of about eight whales! This was totally awesome and they were socializing together then started running north so we sailed beside them and ran up the coast with them. It was so amazing!
Capt. Shane had heard reports of a humpback whale sighting so we continued WNW along San Juan Island and out into the strait west of Stuart Island. We actually crossed into Canada searching for the humpback whales. Humpback whales weigh about 80,000 pounds and have the longest migration route of any other mammal. We found a mother and her calf who treated us with several lunges, blows, and tail fluke waves. Scott was snapping pictures wildly and got some really great shots of the flukes. That was amazing to be so close.
But that was not the end of the sightings for the day. Running NE we came a to the north end of Stuart Island and found the T137 pod of four transient whales. Transient orcas eat marine mammals and travel in small immediate family groups of two to five animals. They are stealthy hunters who spend less time on the surface so as to not alert their prey. We got to watch them for a while as they took long dives then came up far from where they went under. We saw them as they passed by Turn Point Lighthouse and then headed for home.
We had been out longer than normal because of all the great sightings, so we rounded Stuart Island and sailed back through the center of the San Juan Islands by passing between Orcas and Shaw Islands then Blakely and Decatur Islands and back to Anacortes. Close in to the harbor we got great view of some harbor porpoise. These animals are small and shy, so we were lucky to see them.
Our cruise ended up being about six and a half hours with all the animal sightings and it was just amazing and a once in a lifetime experience! We were so fortunate to be there on that day. And Capt. Shane wished us a happy anniversary!
Final tally of animals we saw on the cruise:
- Resident orca
- Transient orca
- Humpback mother & calf
- Harbor porpoise
- Harbor seal
- Black-tailed deer
- Bald eagle
- Turkey vulture
- Cormorants
- Rhinoceros auklet
- Pigeon guillemot
- Marbled murrelet
- Glaucous-winged gull
- Black oystercatcher
- Belted kingfisher
- Harlequin duck
- Canada goose
- Common sea star
- Lion’s mane jellyfish
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