Tuesday, June 17th

It surprises me that even with a cool start to our tour, the Victoria weather changed and gave us another amazing day on the water. Today’s tours were spent traveling around the straits of Juan De Fuca and Haro looking for as much wildlife as possible. We were very pleased to come across many harbour seals hauled out on rocks along the shores of such islands as Trail, Chain and Chatham. These cute, yet intelligent, animals spend their time between the seaweed covered rocks and the bull kelp forest in the fast moving waters. We also were fortunate enough to see a few large mature bald eagles as they sat high atop rocks scanning the waters for fish to feed on. After getting a great look at these animals we traveled to the west side of San Juan Island. Once there we spent 45 minutes watching the 25 members of J-Pod, a local pod of resident orcas, forage for salmon along the shore lines. We had a great look at many individuals such as Ruffles (J1), a 57 yr old male, as he feed off shore. It was great to see other adolescent males as they trailed behind him in hopes to learn form our oldest living male. We also had a good look at Faith (L57), a male from L-Pod that has out lived his immediate family and is often found traveling with pods other then L. He adds to the experience as he seems to always be looking for females to mate with and not to mention that he has a very unique looking dorsal fin. By the return to the harbour the guests and crew felt very fulfilled with all the wildlife and sun that the day offered.