Sailing with Biggs orcas T46B's up the west side of San Juan

June 16, 2021 – When we left Friday Harbor we had been listening to radio chatter about a pod of orcas who were southbound in San Juan Channel. They stopped for some hunting at Goose Island which enabled us to catch up just as they exited Cattle Pass. The orcas were known as the T46B’s (minus her daughter T46B1 and offspring). The group looped around the bottom of Salmon Bank passing a tight group of harbor porpoise, several seals floating out in the wide open and a minke whale before turning to go up the west side of San Juan Island. Another boat found 2 orca on Hein Bank roughly four miles away also trending north. We took a guess that the two orca were T46B1 and one of her two offspring, T46B1A (T46B1B has not been traveling with his mother for a little while) – and we were correct. The two orca oozed in closer to shore and joined up with their family. At first they were in traveling mode but as they neared Lime Kiln the group began socializing. After a great encounter with the orca we continued on our way with a stop in New Channel north of Spieden Island. There were several Mouflon sheep/rams in the middle of the cliff face on Spieden foraging on tree leaves/shrubbery. We could hear rocks falling to the ground as the animals made their way up and down the cliff. At one point one of them hopped down the cliff in vertical leaps with the last one being a 40 foot drop into a soft mound dirt at the bottom of the landslide. A bald eagle happened to be standing there along the shoreline turning to look at the sheep behind him. A peregrine falcon who lives on the cliff let out several calls during the action as well. As we came back through the Wasp Islands wing on wing in light air a common loon surfaced next to us and let out his loud haunting call. A bald eagle flew overhead and we were treated to the calls of the black oystercatchers on Low Island. Another exciting day in the Salish Sea.