Friday, August 3

For the morning tour today we were lucky enough to have orcas return from their trip up to Vancouver and the whales were swimming along the shoreline of San Juan Island. This was a nice trip to begin Lorna’s (our newest naturalist) second day of training. The whales were very active as they swam in all directions.

The afternoon brought us a little further north as the whales began towards Vancouver. We had some nice passes by a number of whales near Spieden Island, an American island known to have exotic animals living there.

For our final tour of the day, we did another long voyage just like our afternoon trip from the day before. We drove all the way up to Saturna Island to get some fantastic views of members of J-pod as they began heading across the Strait of Georgia, probably making their way over to the Fraser River. Tsawwassen terminal could be seen off in the distance and after an amazing viewing from the orcas we had a beautiful boat ride back along the Gulf Islands.


Thursday, August 2nd

Our morning trip today brought us along San Juan Island where we were in search mode for our southern residents that had finally returned from the Pacific Ocean. We scanned the waters along San Juan, Hein Bank and Salmon Bank but did not have much luck. We did manage to see Harbour Seals along the rocks of Whale Rocks. A number of them were in the water and were extremely active, jumping and splashing, probably doing some morning hunting.

For the afternoon trip we received word that the Orcas were up by Vancouver. Thanks to a group of adventurous passengers we decided to prolong the trip to be able to make it up to that area and we were well rewarded. Orcas were on all sides of us, with some nice passes by Mike (from and J-pod) and a group of females. It is always nice to end the day with some great views of the Orcas.