[Naturalist Erick D., M/V Sea Lion, 8/21/17, 1:30PM]
On Monday, Captain Pete, Andrew, and I started to look for some amazing marine wildlife on another beautiful sunny day. We headed north towards D’Arcy Islands just on the other side of the border. It was two families of Transient Orcas swimming together towards Mandarte Island. They were socializing for a little bit, but mostly travelling north. We then saw another group on the other side of Mandarte and Halibut Islands. It was another group of two Transient Orca families. We watched this second group for a few minutes as they travelled in between Mandarte and Sidney Islands straight through a floating flock of Marbled Murrelets! So cool!
We eventually left these cool creatures to continue their journey on northward. We went over to Sentinel Rocks next to check out all the Harbor Seals hauled out on the rocks. Atop the rocks too, there were two Bald Eagles! We then scouted out the shoreline of Spieden Island and got to see all the exotic deer and sheep that were left there by one of the eccentric, previous owners of the island. We watched these funny out of place animals for a little bit then we had to move on back to Friday Harbor. It was another sunny, wonderful day out here. You can definitely feel autumn approaching here, but there are still a lot of amazing things to see out here.
Until next time,
Naturalist Erick
