I wake up Friday morning to pouring rain outside my window. Who would go whale watching today? I WOULD! By noon the sky is clearing and the promise of a beautiful afternoon is ahead of us. With a positive minded group of passengers...they left home in the rain...we head north spurred on by a report of whales heading north!
Haro Strait is calm today, the sun appears, and as our eyes scan the water we see three big fins, appearing ahead of a tug and tow, pointed north! This turns out to be a wonderful family group of five whales, one being a large adult male! We watch this group travel up the strait marveling at their size and grace.
There are more whales coming up from the south so we decide to dodge over and check out some Dall Porpoise by the lighthouse. They are so fast! These distant "cousins" of the Orca disappear in the swirling currents. We catch them with our eyes, but no encore performance for our cameras.
But wait! Seabirds off the starboard bow! Rhinocerous aukets bob near the boat. We can see the fancy breeding plumage and even the tiny "horn" feature on the beak.
Such fancy outfits! This relative of the Tufted Puffin is a real head turner today!
A little further over on the rocky cliff of Stuart Island we are surprised by Pelagic Cormorants nesting. I haven't seen this area used in the last few years, but today there are the beginnings of nests appearing on narrow ledges and indentations in the wall face.
While we are busy with some of the other amazing wildlife in the Salish Sea, more members of J Pod and a few K Pod whales, and finally some L Pod whales appear. We are lucky today! It is early in the season for whales of all three pods to be together here, but then it's wildlife and part of the fascination is you never know exactly what you will see or what will be happening!
On our way back to Friday Harbor we come across Steller sealions hauled out in full "soak up the sun" pose. This is the largest of the sealions and there is no mistake about that today!
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