Whale watching on the Salish Sea

The last day we were in town we went on a whale watching tour with San Juan Excursions:

Leaving Friday Harbor

 

While cruising out into the Salish we passed so many beautiful homes. I was talking with one of the stewards and she was telling me all about how on some of the islands there are no cars at all and the trash ferry only comes once a week. Most of the homes don't even have electricity (all the fancy ones do we are talking about the original locals) She even told us a joke: That you either have 3 houses or 3 jobs in San Juan. A lot of the really really rich guys (CEO of Oakleys, Google, etc.) have vacation homes here. Sometimes even more than one.

A shot of the Cattle Point Lighthouse that we hiked to the day before.

 

And then... we got really lucky and found a transient pod of orcas!

There were 7 of them total 4 adults and 3 babies. They were super active and our guides kept talking about how lucky we were because the day before they couldn't find any all day. Note: If you do go on a whale watching tour and you don't see any whales most places give you a rain check and you get to go on another cruise to try again! It's good advice to plan a tour at the beginning of your trip not at the end like us. Thankfully, we got to see whales but it would have sucked leaving with a rain check and not know when we were going back.

There were several other boats in the water and we were all watching these guys. They played and played for our entire 3 hour trip. It's against the law to be within 200ft of them but sometimes they swim close to you and you have to turn off your engines. I was excited they swam closer because I got a lot of really good close ups. I want to edit these but I still have no idea how to use photoshop.

Seeing them jump all the way out of the water was my favorite. I asked how much they weighed... eight TONS! That's a lot of power being used right there.

 

 

It was an amazing way to end our trip. I learned so much about whales from our guides which were terrific. We went out with San Juan Excursions and you can check out all their pictures from the day we went out HERE. Ignore the terrible picture of me on there. I blame the camera.

 

Now time for me to state some facts. DO NOT go to any Sea worlds or places that have whales in captivity. These whales are endangered and they aren't supposed to be doing tricks in a big fishbowl they should be in the oceans living out their lives. It was disgusting to learn how these businesses treat the animals and how they lie and bribe people to keep them in captivity. They are supposed to be rehabilitating injured whales but they never allow the whale to be released. It's a lot of terrible information that you can read about here. Please don't support these businesses by giving them money. If you want to see a whale, go see them in the wild. It doesn't even compare to Sea world and it is way better to see them jumping of their own free will. Right now I am hoping that Lolita can be FREED from the Miami Seaquarium. You can follow the group on Facebook here. Her family is a resident pod in the San Juans where we were! Lolita needs to come home and she needs our help! They also post about different whales and issues that have come up all the time. Educate yourself people...this stupid crap has got to stop.

 

That pretty much wraps up our trip to the San Juans. I highly suggest this vacation spot to everyone and I want to go back again one day and explore the other islands.