August 9, 2024 – We had a wildlife filled sail today. While taking the narrow pass around Turn Island we spotted about 4 raccoons, a pair of black tailed deer, a pair of bald eagles, and many harbor seals. Tacked our way down San Juan Channel and passed the nesting cormorants and gulls on Goose Island. The Steller sea lions were entertaining as usual at Whale Rocks. Continuing our journey we sailed around Long Island and hugged the Lopez coastline down to Castle Island passing bald eagles, black oystercatchers and belted kingfishers. Today we thought it would be fun to venture to Smith Island in search of puffins, our first time there this year. We were delighted to find about a dozen tufted puffins and one horned puffin. As far as we know there is only a single pair of horned puffins in the area (and actually only thought there was one until a recent discovery by a friend of ours who photographed two together). We also spotted many common murres, pigeon guillemots, rhinoceros auklets and a variety of gulls. We returned via Salmon Bank where we found a minke whale (nicknamed “Dent”) and had some wonderful views. Returned via Whale Rocks again and passed Deadman Island before making our way back up San Juan Channel.
