Whale watching in the San Juans

One of the appeals of The San Juans here in Puget Sound is that they are a prime spot for whale watching. There are three resident pods of Orcas (killer whales) and a number of transient pods come through on a regular basis as well. We arranged for a whale watching tour through the hotel, and were told it would be about a three hour tour (maybe longer if you see whales). They pick you up on the beach, and the world renowned chef from the Willows Inn would prepare a "Gourmet food basket" for the trip.

We were told to show up at the inn around 1:00 PM, and the boat would pick us up at 1:15.

I hate to be late, and expect that in others. I am usually disappointed. We showed up at 1:00, and the basket was not quite ready. They had to toast the bread.

The gourmet basket consisted of several pieces of toast, some cheese in olive oil (hard to eat on a boat) some meat spread (ditto) and some small chocolates. I can say that we were disappointed.

But we showed up on the beach as directed:


and waited until about 1:35 before the boat came by.

We did not know what to expect, so every vessel we saw, we thought was the whale watching boat.


We thought this one was:

But that was some sort of a tug boat or rescue vessel.

Finally, we saw this come in:


and we thought, oh no! It is raining and cold. This will be a long trip.

But Troy, the skipper, was very nice. He gave us some rain gear to put on, and off we went.


We saw some porpoises as we crossed the water to what we thought were the whale watching grounds.

But this was just a runabout that took us to the main whale watching boat:

It had an inside cabin, and there were about 10 people already on it. We came in, found a place to settle, and listened to the "stories" that the pilot and guide told us.

We motored for about 45 minutes to the Lime Kiln Lighthouse, where there was a pod of orcas, including a baby.

I took a lot of photos, but most of them turned out like this:

a lot of water.

But then I was able to snap a few shots of the whales


There were plenty of whales


they were frolicking and jumping about. We saw a couple of them breach, and the baby was jumping around with the adults.






It was relatively warm, and mostly dry, inside the cabin. We were dressed for the occasion.


That is my Tilly Hat. I had a chin strap so that it wouldn't fly off. Doreen got a baseball cap from the Lummi Island Historically Society that had an image of a salmon reef netting rig:


We saw some more Bald Eagles


and then it was time to leave our little boat.


and get back on our really little boat.


While the day wasn't exactly what we expected, it was pretty fun.





Goodbye, Captain Troy!