Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Our day on the water: On a scale of 1 to 10, for some people it was a minus five.

When the crew arrived on the boat this morning it was blowing and there were white caps in the bay. But by the time we had the boat ready and were loading passengers, it had settled down and looked good. So out we went. We were surprised that it was sloppy in Bellingham Bay, although it wasn’t as bad as yesterday. We certainly didn’t expect it to be as sloppy as it was on the southwest end of San Juan Island. We went down San Juan Channel, and when we hit the narrows, we were in the waves. We knew the whales were out there, there was a boat from Victoria B.C. with them. They were off the west side of San Juan Island. Once we had committed to going out, with the waves rising and the current against us, we could not turn around and go back. We had to stay our course. So we bucked out through the waves and headed up the west side of San Juan Island. The seas were 9 to 10 feet, and it was not rolling swells. Our captains have had MANY years of experience out here, and our boat is big and safe. Our seasoned crew has seen seas way worse than this, but many of our passengers had never had this experience. So for some of them, it was very unpleasant. The boat from Victoria radioed us and said they were heading back; it was too getting too rough. So up the side of the island we went. We soon realized it was hopeless to try and find the whales. They could have been fifty yards away and we wouldn’t have been able to see them (and they probably were!) For them, this weather is playtime. We did get a glimpse of some Dall’s porpoise, but only a few passengers saw them. Sometimes these porpoise will play with the bow wake of our boat, but today they had their own playground of waves and weren’t interested in our boat. Finally we were able to duck into protected Mosquito Pass and get some relief. Everyone only wanted to get home at this point. There were a few bird sightings on the way home. We saw some of the Bighorn sheep on Speiden Island. That was the extent of our wildlife tour. Some days can just be a dud! We invited everyone back for a free trip either on one of our last few days, or next year.  We had a taste of fall weather today. It is September, but hopefully we still have a few weeks left of summer. Today is a great day to post some pictures from Bob Mepham of Blaine. These were taken three weeks ago and this is what whale watching is all about!