[June 30- M/V Sea Lion – 1:30 PM] We had an absolutely amazing day out on the water with an eating transient family. We headed South down San Juan channel for about 10 minutes until we reached the area where the T99’s were hanging out. We watched as the whales traveled slowly North until they went down on a longer dive. We were waiting for the whales to resurface when all of a sudden they popped up near our vessel. We would never intentionally place ourselves closer then 200 yards but when the whales surprise us by surfacing close to our vessel it would be much safer to turn our engines off and allow the whales to move safely rather than motor in close proximity to them. When the whales resurfaced they began killing what we later found out was a harbor seal. They spent about 15 minutes circling around their prey before finally killing it, which was signaled to us with a huge cloud of blood in the water. We watched as the animal’s prey shared for a while and even gave us an awesome spy hop to see. The whales finished eating and started traveling North and we stayed until the whales were a safe distance away from us before we started motoring away. While we were waiting for the whales we got to see some reminisce of the kill, some researchers even collected a few samples of the kill. It was probably one of my favorite days out on the water and definitely one for the books! We had an absolutely amazing day out on the water with an eating transient family. We headed South down San Juan channel for about 10 minutes until we reached the area where the T99’s were hanging out. We watched as the whales traveled slowly North until they went down on a longer dive. We were waiting for the whales to resurface when all of a sudden they popped up near our vessel. We would never intentionally place ourselves closer then 200 yards but when the whales surprise us by surfacing close to our vessel it would be much safer to turn our engines off and allow the whales to move safely rather than motor in close proximity to them. When the whales resurfaced they began killing what we later found out was a harbor seal. They spent about 15 minutes circling around their prey before finally killing it, which was signaled to us with a huge cloud of blood in the water. We watched as the animal’s prey shared for a while and even gave us an awesome spy hop to see. The whales finished eating and started traveling North and we stayed until the whales were a safe distance away from us before we started motoring away. While we were waiting for the whales we got to see some reminisce of the kill, some researchers even collected a few samples of the kill. It was probably one of my favorite days out on the water and definitely one for the books!
Rachel, Naturalist, Seattle Orca Whale Watching
