Minke whales by Smith Bank and Turn Island plus a brown pelican and tufted puffin

September 21, 2020 – South on the ebb and today we could again see Mount Baker. A great blue heron roosting high on a snag, resting harbor seals and two bald eagles watched as we drifted through the pass. From Pear Point we moved quickly to Shark Reef and Deadman Island with more views of heron, harbor seals and black oystercatchers. Steller sea lion were up to their antics on Whale Rocks and there are very large congregations of cormorants here with less numbers on Goose Island nowadays.

We sailed around Whale Rocks on the fast moving currents and followed the ebb out to Long Island. A bald eagle looked out from the point as we continued to follow the Lopez shoreline to Iceberg Point. Asking Barbara to scan to the South to McArthur Bank and she spotted a brown pelican 1.2 miles away. So we sailed out to confirm sure enough a brown pelican and then followed the Bank to the South. On Smith Bank we found a minke whale and we were able to drift as the whale circled us with beautiful views with the calm waters reflecting the skyscapes over the Olympic Mountains.

Heading North and we found one tufted puffin who was now in winter plumage. We also saw many loons, grebes, scoters, murres, auklets, gulls and cormorants. At Salmon Bank we found a large number of harbor porpoise, maybe 50 or so, beautiful in the calm reflective waters of sunset light. We shut down and drifted with the harbor porpoises surfacing around us for quite some time. Passing Whale Rocks we photographed a steller sea lion with an entanglement scar. The now flooding current gave us fast speed up the channel. Drifting between Turn Island and Turn Rock we heard the blow of a rather large minke whale. We paralleled for a while as he travelled South. A September equinox sunset in the San Juan Islands.