06-24-22
Anacortes Location
AM
Our morning trip started off under beautiful, sunny skies and flat calm waters. We slowed down along Williamson Rocks where we spotted numerous harbor seals and cormorants perched on the rocks. We pushed further to the south to the Number 2 can along Lawson Reef where we found a couple of Steller sea lions hauled out. Then, Captain Drew told us that we were just going to wait right there because some killer whales were headed right to us! It happened to be the T65As, specifically, T65A2, the oldest son of the group. We spent so much time with him as he travelled a little further to the west of the rest of his family. He surfaced at regular intervals, allowing us to get some great looks as he cruised north. He actually ended up leading us in the direction of a humpback whale who was swimming alongshore of the south side of Cypress Island. We were able to get an ID of this animal. S/he is a younger animal named BCY1218, nicknamed Kata. Kata has been spending a lot of time down near Tacoma, so we were quite surprised to see s/he up in our backyard! We had a couple of great looks, until the rest of the killer whales, T65As and the T60s (-T60D and T60E) came up along the other side of the boat and decided to all start cruising up Bellingham Channel with purpose. Since they were headed the opposite direction from our home port, and we had already had so much whale time, we turned and headed home. It was such a gorgeous morning trip on the water!
PM
We set off on our afternoon trip north up Bellingham Channel. It is a rare trip where we make our way into Hale Passage between Lummi Island and the mainland, but that is exactly where we ended up meeting up with our killer whale buddies from the morning trip, the T65As! As we approached the scene, it looked like they were just celebrating a successful hunt! We had lots of splashing around, a few breaches, and some playful interactions. After their celebration was complete, they started trekking to the north, right past the canoe races that were happening on Lummi Island. What a treat! We accompanied the killer whales all the way through Hale Passage and they continued north, as we took a turn to the south to head back home. We stopped by Peapod Rocks where we found several harbor seals hauled out and a couple of bald eagles perched on the rocks. As we made our way down Rosario Strait, Captain Drew slowed up the boat - he had spotted our humpback whale from the morning trip! We definitely let our passengers know that humpback whales have quite the lung capacity and, let me tell you, our whale today was working on holding its breath! We searched the flat calm waters for over 20 minutes and never saw it resurface! We gave it our best shot, but couldn't relocate the whale - who can hold his breath for 45 minutes if it wanted to! We pressed on toward home port after a simply picturesque evening on the water!
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