Sailing with minke whales and a humpback

July 20, 2020 – As we exited the harbor we made our way down San Juan Channel with the ebb tide in our favor. Hugging the Lopez Island coastline from Rock Pt we sailed by the harbor seals who were resting on Shark Reef and out through Cattle Pass. We moved quickly passed Whale Rocks out to Salmon Bank to catch up with a humpback whale who was first reported passing Friday Harbor southbound at 10:15am. The humpback was identified as BCX0837 “Tempest”.

With much surface time and shorter dives we were able to get many good lucks at him sailing parallel as he made his way to Hein Bank. The loud exhales could be heard easily and the large tail flukes were quite visible as it went down on its deeper dives. At Hein Bank the humpback swam right over the shallowest part of the bank in less than 20 feet of water. We circled back around the top of the bank and spotted a minke whale or two swimming not too far away from the humpback.

Continuing our journey we headed back towards Salmon Bank where we found at least three more minke whales who were milling without any obvious feeding behavior despite many active bait balls all around us. We left the minke whales on hearing reports of Biggs/transient orcas known as the T37A’s who were pointed south from Pea Pod Rocks on the east side of Orcas Island. We came through Cattle Pass on the incredible rushing flood current at speed at 12 knots. Unfortunately, the orcas changed course and ended up going north towards Pt Roberts so we slowed down to drift up San Juan Channel in the sunshine. Harbor porpoise were playing in the current and harbor seals were on the rocks near Turn Island as we came through the pass back to Friday Harbor.