Southern Resident Orcas return to San Juan Island

September 2, 2018

We sailed South on the ebb with news of J pod returning from the Fraser River and approaching the West side of San Juan Island. We came through Turn Island Pass seeing a number of harbor seals warming in the midday sun and picked up a good breeze for a fast sail across to Big Rock glacial erratic on Lopez shoreline. Tacked a couple of times to pass Goose Island with a lot of harbor seals on the West side beach and many cormorants at their nests. Tacking again we came out to Whale Rocks and the steller sea lions were being vey playful with jumps into the water and playful practice of dominance fighting.

We then headed inshore of an armada of recreational fishing boats to come to Eagle Point. We saw the J16s close to shore headed down Island. We moved further offshore and found a playful group of young whales that included some of the J14s, J17s and J19s. We sailed silently alongside listening to occaisional calls on our hydrophone. There were others further offshore and all were spread out, socializing, foraging and headed towards Hein Bank.

We left them to head inshore towards Salmon Bank briefly seeing J26 Mike and a humpback whale who’d been circling the area all day. Supper while drifting the flood in the calm waters inside Deadman Island with many harbor seals and 2 bald eagles. Wing on wing and a pretty fast sail all the way home and a cool sunset as we came around Turn Island into Friday Harbor.