T99's and T37A's Biggs Orcas

The weather was beautiful today with flat calm water. We had multiple pods being viewed in two different areas. We were with the group in ther Strait of Juan de Fuca and a Humpback close by too.

My day started off with a call from a family going out that had missed the ferry to Friday Harbor. I had them catch the next ferry to Orcas Island and I would pick them up there. I do offer water taxi service here in the islands but did not charge for this one.

After picking them up I went back to my dock in Friday Harbor to pick up my other two guests who were arriving dockside at the same time as we did. They rode the San Juan Clipper up from Seattle and transferred over to Spirit of Orca and off we went.

On our way down to the strait we stopped off to see Sea Puppies or Water Puppies. That is what my three year old guest called them. I call them Orca Sausages aka Harbor Seals. Then we viewed a Bald Eagle and the Steller Sea Lions.

From there we made our way into the strait and stopped off to see a young Humpback Whale who is new to our area and was not in our ID catalog. I was told the ID but do not remember it.

From there we more less slowly made our way over to the Orcas. We did not see the carnage but they had made a couple harbor seal kills. You can see the sea gulls hovering over them in a couple pics diving for bits of blubber.

T37A3 has a folded over dorsal fin. It was injured sometime a couple years ago and left with the folded fin. T99A has three jags on the back of her dorsal fin and easy to ID once you know who she is. I first learned of her while on a tour last year. I was searching for orca in the strait of Juan de Fuca and found the T99’s but did not know who they were. I pasted of pic of her on FaceBook and a fellow captain and naturalist responded with who it was.

On our way back to the harbor we saw a Great Blue Heron standing on some bull kelp looking for fish. After leaving the heron we continued on to Friday Harbor. As we were getting close one of my guests spotted a family of five River Otters. They were in some deep shadow so most of the pics did not turn out great. There are four of them in the pic I included here. Then an easy motor back into the harbor to finish off a great day.