Friday, September 4th, 2009

As we headed out of Bellingham Bay we received reports of whales being in two places! Not knowing if they were transients or residents, we chose a group that was around Deception Pass. By the time we got to them, they were six miles west and sleeping. It was J pod and part of L pod. (J pod has 24 members and L pod has 43, L’s often split up into subgroups.) As usual, J1 (Ruffles) was easy to spot. A bit of a hint that it’s J pod! J2 (Granny) and J14(Samish) were alongside him with J14’s new calf J45. The rest of the pod was tightly grouped with them, as they were in a ‘sleeping mode’. (See previous report on August 20th about sleeping.) After a while J16 (Slick) and a her brood : four calves ranging in age from 2 to 18 years of age, started to break away and were travelling west at good speed. There were a few spy hops and tail slaps and 13 year old J33 (Tika) gave us a good view. His dorsal fin is really starting to grow! We decided to head home through San Juan Channel, as there were more whales up there that we could see on our way home. At Whale Rocks (we never see whales there!) we stopped to watch nine Stellar sea lions frolicking in the kelp beds. They were flipping around and splashing, coming up to watch us watch them! These sea lions can get up to 2,200 pounds. This time of year, we get the males up here; the females are further south with the pups. When sea lions get together like this they are called a ‘raft’. Whereas, seals are called a pod or a harem. We went on our way and there was the whale watching fleet in San Juan Channel. Where we had been earlier, we had been by ourselves, except for the  M/V Mystic Sea out of Anacortes.  The fleet was  watching the other part of L pod and K pod which also appeared to be sleeping. J pod and some of these whales had been sixty miles north yesterday, way up in Canada.  We started heading east towards home and we encountered an unusual sight. There was a purse seine boat where Upright Channel meets San Juan Channel and they were hauling in their net. This is not a spot where we normally see these fishing boats. They had a good haul of pink salmon, so we watched as they brought them aboard. A lot of our passengers had never seen this many salmon! All of our crew on board today has been commercial fishermen (or women) at some time in our lives, yet we never tire of seeing a good haul come on board.  Finally, it was really, really time to head home. Luckily, on the way we were able to stop and see a bald eagle on Lummi Island. And then one more brief stop to see some harbor seal pups on Eliza Rock. Our other birding today included: black oystercatchers, black turnstones, rhinoceros auklets, marbled murrelets, great blue heron, common murres, and numerous gulls.