Today me and mommy went on a whale watching tour! To get there we took a huge ferry to San Juan Islands. It was a 1 hour trip and when we got there we were about an hour early so we walked around on the island and then when our boat got there we got on. The tour was about 2 ½ hours long. About an hour into the tour we saw some orcas! I got a lot of really good pictures. I even got some pictures of the grey spots just behind their dorsal fin. Those spots are called saddle patches.
Summer's View
Today we were on the road by 6:00 am to head north to take the ferry out of Anacortes, WA to the San Juan Islands for a whale watch tour! The rush hour traffic was already on the road, so it was slow going for a while, even on the bypass.
Sam saw a statistic the other day that listed the top ten worst cities for traffic, and I KNEW Seattle would be on there! No matter what the time of day, it seems the traffic is heavy. And rush hour traffic already at 6:00 am??!! The weirdest thing about the list of cities was that Seattle was number five on the list, and Tampa was number two! Having driven in both cities, I say they are not even close! Tampa is a walk in the park next to this place! :)
Our ferry ride was cool, and Sam had never been on one that took vehicles, so he was awed by the size of the ferry and the fact that semi trucks, rvs, and everything else were onboard. While in the dock, we saw Brandt's Cormorants nesting on the pilings. We got a close up look at their babies, and Sam got to add a new bird to his list!
We got to Friday Harbor about an hour before the whale watch cruise, so we walked around town a little. The docks area was mostly tourism businesses and pubs and restaurants, along with some gift shops.
Our whale watch tour was about 2 1/2 hours long, and the naturalist on board was filling us in on the statistics about the resident orca pods in the area. She said they were mainly feeding on salmon this time of year, and they had been spotted earlier in the area we were now heading.
We got to see at least two pods of orcas, with males, females, and calves! They were so beautiful!! Our ship followed them around for over an hour, and we saw them moving along the coast slowly, feeding. Sam took LOTS of pics, and when we zoomed in, we could see several of them closely enough to identify the individual whales by their "saddle patch" which is a grayish area behind their dorsal fins. He showed his pics to the naturalist, who was impressed, and she sat down with us with her identifier book to see if we could identify any of the whales from the pod. We saw at least two, and another she said was a young male that was probably not in the book, as it had been published in 1994. How cool!!
There was a research vessel there taking photos of the whales for identification, too!
After a ferry ride back to Anacortes, where we napped on the ferry, we then drove home, arriving around 7:30 pm. There was rush hour traffic still on the road even that late! Unbelievable! It was a long day, but a great one!
No comments:
Post a Comment