Friday, June 19th

It started out as a rainy day, but once we were out in the islands, the sun began to shine and it warmed up. This is typical. We can leave Bellingham in the rain, go out to sunshine in the San Juan Islands, and return at the end of the day to a rainy Bellingham. The islands are considered the “banana belt” of the Northwest. The Orcas were on the west side of San Juan Island early in the morning heading north. It seemed as though they would take a routinely known path through Active Pass and out into the Strait of Georgia. We headed north and this is where we found them. They were very north! We could see the city of Vancouver with its skyscrapers off of the starboard side of the boat. We stopped and drifted and watched the whales heading towards the Frazier River. They were actively foraging, and it seemed as though the feeding was good. There was a lot of fish chasing and feeding. This was a good sign, as the Orcas have been scarce in this area probably due to a lack of salmon. Ninety percent of their diet is salmon. They need to eat 200 to 400 pounds of salmon a day. When you have three pods of orcas that number in the eighties, this can add up to a substantial amount of fish! J1 Ruffles and J2 Granny were off in the distance (mom and son). However, we were treated to close up views of Mike J26 and his buddy Blackberry J27. They are two eighteen year old males that have grown up together. So it looks like the salmon have arrived and so have the whales!