A half day sail around Stuart Island

September 20, 2019 – We raised sails in Friday Harbor while collecting reports on Humpbacks in our area. We’d been taking notes on a humpback whale traveling from Sucia to the channel South of Skipjack, whilst 2 others traveled North near the Peapods, whilst another had reappeared at McArthur Bank. There were other sighting reports, too, but these were the three known that were potentially within our range, though only just, to get home by dusk.

With raising sails in Friday Harbor we took a Northerly course to see the forested shoreline of Point Caution and cross San Juan Channel to the Wasp Islands. Wasp Pass was watched over by a pair of bald eagles who watched us drift around Cliff Island whilst we plotted a northerly course into Boundary Pass. We went by way of Spring Pass and the coastline of Jones Island to the Southern coastline of Flattop National Wildlife Refuge before veering more to the North West. The lighting was mercurial becoming clear with clouds at some times and a great sunset.

Sunshine lit a bald eagle nest and warmed the harbor seals of Flattop Island. And New Channel was magical with a very low layer of haze sitting on the calm waters and a cloud layer with silver lining wrapped above us. And on through the Cactus Islands with their aging kelp forests to the cliffs of Spieden Island to ride with the current out on the Stuart Island shoreline. Out from Lovers Leap and Turn Point Lighthouse, shutting down at the point to drift the current whilst listening for blows and finding the many tiny puffs made by harbor porpoise. Cormorants watched from Lovers Leap and schoolchildren danced at the lighthouse.

Boundary Pass was a mirror and we could hear for miles. We ate our supper and listened for blows. Harbor Porpoise were the blows we heard this evening as we believe the Humpback MMX0007 took a turn towards Swanson Channel. However the scenes we scanned were all a part of his home. Rounding Ripple Island into New Channel and the scene was a marvel of painted light of all kinds in this land where animals roam, fly, swim and dive. Sunset and we shut down to drift Nob towards Low and Yellow Island crossing into twilight across the Channel to Friday Harbor.