After a nice night sleep Thatch and I walked through downtown Friday Harbor to Susie’s Mopeds to pick up our little red Scoot Coupe. After a thorough training and debriefing of the rules of the road we drove off the lot and off to grab a quick coffee, smoothie, and breakfast on the waterfront. Full bellies and some caffeine down, we set off for our three-hour trip around San Juan Island. The scoot coupe is super fun to drive and easily did the 25-35 mile speed limit that encompasses most of the island. We stopped along the way at lots of viewing areas including Cattle Point Light House, Driftwood Beach, False Harbor, Lime Kiln Point Park, and more. We drove by the beautiful Lavender Farm, Alpaca Farm, and Sculpture Garden because we had a boat to catch….but, we are excited to go to all three of those places in our Jeep tomorrow.
At 1:30 we boarded our second whale watch. This time with San Juan Excursions on board the Odyssey. It had just started to rain and was significantly colder than the day before. In addition, reports were that the group of resident orcas that had magically returned after a two-month absence… just in time for our arrival the day before…. had already left the area again. None of the boats had reported seeing them….or the transient Bigg’s Orcas that are found on 90% of the trips. We didn’t have high hopes of seeing whales, but were still keenly aware of how lucky we were to have had such a magnificent trip the day before….so our spirits were high.
On this trip we headed north towards Waldron Island. It wasn’t long before we saw a dozen or so bald eagles….so cool….and several seals. Those sightings and the breathtaking scenery that literally surrounds you in the midst of these islands would have been enough to have satisfied us on that trip, but soon enough we came upon a family of Bigg’s Orcas. Bigg’s are one of the species that feed upon porpoises and whales….as opposed to the salmon feeding orcas we had seen the day before. The group consisted of a male (the father), a mother, her teenage off-spring, and her newest baby girl. The baby orca breached a few times and they all traveled between us and the coast for about an hour before we needed to head back. At times they were so close to the shore it seemed like someone on land could have almost touched them.
I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t been regretting my decision to bring my better quality camera gear on this trip, but we will anxiously await the naturalists’ photos. A fantastic bonus of taking a trip through this organization is that they share their photos via email for no charge.
Yesterday I wrote about our sunset trip with those resident orcas that had left the area for so long. It is not at all lost on me how special it is that those whales returned to the area on Thursday, we were able to secure a spot on a sunset whale watch on Friday seeing SO many of them (after missing an afternoon whale watch due to a canceled ferry….. a whale watch that just so happen didn’t encounter those whales), and that those whales seem to have already disappeared again. Here is the whale blog report written by one of the naturalists on board the Sea Lion vessel about our sunset cruise with those whales. We have been following that blog report since May and it was really special to finally experience a trip with them….especially such a special trip!
After some downtime back at our vacation rental, we went downtown and had dinner at the Blue Water Bar and Grill overlooking the insanely cute Friday Harbor. Thatch had his “go to” Ahi Tuna and I had fish tacos. Ice cream across the street….where two small cones added up to only $7.50 (when was the last time two ice creams only cost you that?)…wrapped up our night and by 10:00 we were tucked into bed.
Good Morning Gloucester 