Orcas Island Whale Watching in the San Juan Islands of Washington State

We were presented the Orcas Island Chamber of Commerce 2011 award for Environmental Excellence and we couldn’t be happier. It’s nice to be recognized for our commitment to environmental responsibility.

It’s been a while since my last post. I have been keeping almost daily updates on Deer Harbor Charters’ Facebook page. If you’d like more updates you can join that page.

With the end of my season in a few weeks, I have been thinking about how fast it went by, and what stood out. We had two newborns, one in L pod, one in J pod, all of the southern residents still with us, a possibly sick or pregnant whale (L90), some fairly nasty weather in June and July, new regulations that made our viewing better and hopefully better for the whales, a really great crew who worked their butts off, no mechanical issues to deal with and really beautiful weather in September. Thanks to all of you that made it all possible.

What a month of April so far.  There are many reports of transient orca here, some of the transients haven’t been in this area before.For the past three days we have had groups of transients come by Deer Harbor in San Juan Channel. Last year we had transients here during April and May so maybe this year will be a repeat. It’s sure shaping up that way. I have posted more info and photos on my Facebook page.

Not very good news today. just about everyone’s favorite orca, Ruffles,  hasn’t been sighted since late November.  J pod has been sighted often this Winter but no sign of Ruffles. He’s the oldest male orca (approximately 60 years old), and one of the biggest. I for one, am very sad if he is indeed gone. I have seen Ruffles every summer for the past 24 years and always marveled at his size, strentgh and presence. If he is gone, I will miss seeing him like I would miss seeing a family member. I will hold out and hope he is still alive and in some other area where the abundance of his favorite food, the chinook salmon is plentiful.

Very quiet here in the islands this last month. Last week we had six transient orca come past Deer Harbor in San Juan Channel. J and K pod were seen two weeks ago on the west side of San Juan. Not sure ID’s were made as to who was there but I think most of the J and K whales were sighted that day.

Seems to be lots of salmon around now as well. A sports fisherman came into the marina this weekend with three big hatchery black-mouth salmon <http://www.sschapterpsa.com/ramblings/PS_Blackmouth_fishing.htm>. They also released two other salmon that were from wild stock. Not sure where they were fishing so I can’t give you any tips where to go.

As we begin a new month the boat maintenance list I’ve been compiling is going to come into use one item at a time. I always try and do as much preventative maintenance as I can now, hoping I avoided a problem later in the season by tackling it now.

I’m adding another boat to the business this year. The boat will cater to small groups of no more than six guests per trip. It’s a comfortable, fast and quiet boat, with a heated inside cabin and good outside viewing decks. The boat will make a great offseason boat and offer a more exclusive trip to some folks who like going with a smaller group.

If the weather gets warmer (hopefully), I am going to do a wildlife trip in mid February on or around Valentine’s Day weekend. There’s usually enough people on the island to get the boat out and I’ve seen transient whales on some of my mid February trips. However, the focus of the trips will be the Steller sea lions, bald eagles and porpoises. If the weather isn’t cooperating I’ll wait and start up some time in March.

In the meantime enjoy this week of Sun we’re supposed to get. I’m at my computer these days pecking away at my first book (a story about whales and boats, what else?) that will probably go to the publisher sometime in 2015, if I’m lucky.

They’re Back!!! J, K and L pod showed up today. J pod went north, K pod and L pod went south along the west side of San Juan Island. I heard lots of vocalizations earlier this afternoon when they past Lime Kiln. Hopefully the salmon run is still strong enough to support all of them.

During October we’re going to try and do trips to see humpback whales that have been feeding off of Constance Bank (Victoria). We’ll be doing the trips with North Shore Charters, using Marty Mead’s new fast boat to get us to the humpbacks and back in a reasonable time frame. These trips will take only six guests per trip. The trips are very weather dependent which in October can go either way.

New numbers came out bringing the sockeye salmon run this year to 34 million fish from 25 million. That’s a jump of 9 million fish. In a good salmon year 9 million would be a successful year. WOW!!!!

We had the news of a new L pod calf born yesterday. It appears the mom is L-47, Marina. We were with L-47 and about four other whales in the afternoon and witnessed some erratic behavior with their direction, speed and behavior and location. Sure enough, in the middle of the adult whales up popped a very little head that I at first thought was last year’s baby. Very nice!

Still lots of orca around the islands. K pod showed up yesterday since being gone for quite a while, along with some L pod whales. True to form, the K’s always seem to hang out with J pod and follow them up to the Fraser River and back here. L pod tends to stay south on the west side of San Juan sometimes going north up to the Fraser. In any case it’s really goods to see K pod again.