We took the Whale Watching trip from Anacortes using Island Adventures trip (www.orcawhales.com) It was a 5 star trip - awesome boat, very knowledgeable naturalist Tyson and Captain Scott. Free powerful binoculars to borrow, 3 decks on the boat to watch the whales, superb audio system and everything was so clean. We will take this trip again!
Here is a summary of the whale watching report published by them. We saw
The smoke has finally left the building folks!!! As we headed out today on our journey we began to enjoy clean air for the first time in weeks. There were blue skies all around and even mount Baker showed up today and gave us some amazing views. Our first stop was in Rosario strait where we saw a bunch of harbor seals and briefly spotted a Steller sea lion. From there we headed to the south end of Lopez and cruised by Castle rock. Here we found an adult bald eagle and a few more harbor seals. It was a great start of what would turn into a great day. Continuing west along Lopez and San Juan island captain Scott found the first whales of the day at Salmon Bank. It was BCY0160 “Heather” and BCY0458 “Raptor.” Two humpback whales that have been spotted in these waters for many years. They gave us amazing close up views and even fluked for us multiple times and even did it simultaneously once or twice. After an amazing show from these gargantuan whales we headed to Whale rocks just outside Cattle Pass. Here we found dozens of Steller sea lions hauled out on the shore enjoying our new sunshine levels. These sea lions were definitely of the bigger caliber making us feel pretty humble on the boat. We headed back to the east after that for an adventure under the Deception pass bridge. It was awesome cruising in and out of Deception Pass and with great weather we continued on our search toward Anacortes. On the backside of Burrows Island Captain Scott saved the day once again when he discover T65A3 and A4 playing around a fishing boat. We watched these two Biggs killer whales frolicking for quite some time. As we did we began to really see them get playful, their toy of choice, crab pot buoys. We watched as the younger orca would grab the crab pot line and pull it all around and finally let the buoy bob back to the surface. We had some amazing looks at these two animals and got to see some very unique behaviors from them as well. It was an amazing trip on the Salish Sea today with lots of great animals and plenty of memories made!!!
Here is a summary of the whale watching report published by them. We saw
The smoke has finally left the building folks!!! As we headed out today on our journey we began to enjoy clean air for the first time in weeks. There were blue skies all around and even mount Baker showed up today and gave us some amazing views. Our first stop was in Rosario strait where we saw a bunch of harbor seals and briefly spotted a Steller sea lion. From there we headed to the south end of Lopez and cruised by Castle rock. Here we found an adult bald eagle and a few more harbor seals. It was a great start of what would turn into a great day. Continuing west along Lopez and San Juan island captain Scott found the first whales of the day at Salmon Bank. It was BCY0160 “Heather” and BCY0458 “Raptor.” Two humpback whales that have been spotted in these waters for many years. They gave us amazing close up views and even fluked for us multiple times and even did it simultaneously once or twice. After an amazing show from these gargantuan whales we headed to Whale rocks just outside Cattle Pass. Here we found dozens of Steller sea lions hauled out on the shore enjoying our new sunshine levels. These sea lions were definitely of the bigger caliber making us feel pretty humble on the boat. We headed back to the east after that for an adventure under the Deception pass bridge. It was awesome cruising in and out of Deception Pass and with great weather we continued on our search toward Anacortes. On the backside of Burrows Island Captain Scott saved the day once again when he discover T65A3 and A4 playing around a fishing boat. We watched these two Biggs killer whales frolicking for quite some time. As we did we began to really see them get playful, their toy of choice, crab pot buoys. We watched as the younger orca would grab the crab pot line and pull it all around and finally let the buoy bob back to the surface. We had some amazing looks at these two animals and got to see some very unique behaviors from them as well. It was an amazing trip on the Salish Sea today with lots of great animals and plenty of memories made!!!
