Humpback, Gray and Orca

I started off heading for a Humpback Whale just south of Lopez Island today. He was lunge feeding on bait balls of herring or anchovie. When the bait ball is near the surface there are seagulls feeding on the bait fish and some times they will be engulfed along with the fish. In a couple photos you can see the humpback scared the seagulls into flight.

We saw a Gray Whale feeding on Ghost Shrimp in the Mud Flats. This is such a beautiful animal with his snowflake obsidian like skin pattern. We had also seen bald eagles, stellar sea lions, harbor porpoise and harbor seals.

Just as my first tour ended a pod of orca was spotted north of the islands so that was my plan for the afternoon tour. It was my surprise that this pod was flying north about 11 plus knots at times. We did not arrive with them until a mile and a half from Point Roberts.

We stayed as long as we could needing to get some of my guests back for a 5:30 ferry departure. We had left about 20 minutes early so we still had a full tour, though most of it was travel time catching up to the Orca and returning to Friday Harbor.