Whale Trip Two – Eric’s 40th Birthday.

We have a travel tradition where we go on a trip to celebrate a big birthday. Meaning decade changing birthdays. It started with mine and now it was Eric’s turn. He decided he wanted to go back to San Juan.

Friends and family had been listening to me talk about the whales ever since our last trip, and everyone now was pretty interested in seeing what Eric and I had experienced our first trip. There were a couple years between our trips to San Juan, so some things had changed, especially the orcas’ hunting habits. The SRW eat chinook as their primary diet. Because of the snake water dams on the Columbia River, the chinook salmon have been dwindling in numbers. The SRW are now struggling to feed themselves and not able to spend the entire summer filling their bellies on the coast of San Juan island during the summer months. I hadn’t mentioned to anyone coming on the trip that the whales had gone elsewhere to feed this summer and we most likely would not see them. Researchers, especially Ken Balcomb saw it coming, but now it was as real as it gets. No food, no whales.

We got off the ferry in Friday Harbor, headed to our house unloaded our luggage and headed back to town to eat a late lunch. We were all hungry and tired from traveling. As we were eating, I was getting ready to mention to everyone that we most likely won’t see whales this trip, but at that exact moment I get an alert from Orca Network that the SRW had arrived and there was a super pod on the west side of the island. A super pod is when all individuals of the SRW community come together in one spot. This would include J pod, K pod, and L pod. I couldn’t believe it. I shouted, “Super pod, west side we must go now”. Our rental was on the west side of the island right on the ocean. So, while the rest of the group finished checking out and paying our bill, Aaron our humorous friend, drove Nikki and I aggressively back to our rental. We held on for dear life. As we skidded to a stop in the driveway, to our excitement the orcas were in our front yard. Lots of fins and blows. I couldn’t believe it. I was over the moon happy.

The orcas stayed with us all week and left right after not to be seen again for weeks. They passed our rental home several times a day that week. We didn’t want to leave. In fact, when we did go out on a whale watch boat and we pointed out our rental home while passing by, the boat captain said why are you out with me the orca having been hanging out right there all week. I was shocked. I felt lucky but now it was validated. The boat captains always know where the orca are.

We were supposed to kayak one day and of course the orca were in our cove in front of the house the morning we were supposed to leave for town to go out. There were so many of them and they just kept coming and coming. I didn’t want to leave. In fact, one of my favorite pictures of me with the orca happened that very morning. Lori my sister in law just happened to snap a picture at the exact moment of an orca spy hopping to check us out. I treasure this picture.

Well, long story short, we got in our kayaks and out we went. The guide mentioned we are going to get lucky. The orcas are right outside the harbor. We only must kayak out to a kelp bed we could see with our naked eye. We were instructed to hold on to a piece of kelp and wait for the orca to come to us. Again, all the SRW were out and we were going to see a lot of whales. The orca we saw earlier had turned back south and then headed back north at just the time we were heading out with our kayaks. The kayak guide said we got lucky because they started heading south again which would have meant we would not see them, but they turned around and headed north again. I do believe our guide mentioned that she had never been in a kayak with a super pod either, so she was equally as excited.

We could see the whales immediately as we got out into the open sea. We paddled to the kelp bed and watched orca after orca pass us. It was amazing!!! They had a different presence this day. Not much playing or socializing going on. They seemed to have a mission. I must say that being in a kayak with orca so close by was a totally different feeling than my previous experiences. They seem much bigger when you are in a kayak. I was hoping one would come close and under our kayak, but I was a bit nervous for that as well. It didn’t happen, but they did come close. In fact, our guide got a bit of grief immediately upon returning to land for supposedly not obeying regulation to stay so many yards away. She was doing her job; it was just the orca were not aware of the regulation. We couldn’t move away from them as fast as they could move towards us. But she always had us moving away from them as best as she could.

We went out on a whale watch boat one day too and this was equally as awesome. The boat captains in San Juan all love the whales and respect the laws to the fullest protecting them. Our two favorite captains are Captain Jim Maya and Spencer. We always have a great time with these two. As a spectator only it appears as though all the boats go out around the same time for whale watching. Our captain gave us a choice to follow the other boats going out and watch a large number of whales or head south to go see a very small group of L pods. Wait a minute, did I just hear you say L Pod. Excited, I asked who exactly the L pod members were and he says L 25 and her group. L 25 is ocean sun who is most likely Lolita’s mom that is in captivity at the Miami Seaqurium. I said without hesitation L Pod.

I had to see L25 and tell her I visited her daughter and she looks well and that many people are trying to get her home. It was so emotional seeing her for the first time. I may have seen her before, but she would have been in a larger group and unrecognizable for me. There she was so beautiful and one of the last orcas to have been present in the horrible captures that devastated the SRW. She had seen so much and had her daughter torn away from her. It was emotional to say the least. I watched her and the other three whales with her that day.

I know Calypso was one of the whales and Mega. She was on the hunt for food. As lucky as we were to see whales while visiting SJI they were not the same fun social able whales I had encountered the first trip. They were busy. Busy trying to feed themselves. This trip was cool because Calypso decided to come right over to our boat and give us a big surprise. As our feet are hanging over the bow someone said, “Did you see that fish?” and just then, she surfaces so close we could have touched her. She scared the crap out of us. It wasn’t a fish our group was seeing but the white patch of Calypso’s eye area. This was the closest I had been to an orca in the wild. So, freaking amazing.

We had a week of lots and lots of whales, but like I mentioned before they were different and felt different. I left happy for the experience but sad for the whales.

On the last boat trip out before leaving the island to return home, we were lucky enough to encounter what we believe were Minke whales. They were moving very fast trying to get away from transient orcas. It was really amazing to see something so big moving so fast. As we were getting ready to head back in, I went to the back of the boat to just take in what I had seen and the trip. I always need quiet time to reflect my time with the whales. I was staring off into the distance off the back of the boat by myself saying goodbye to San Juan Island and the whales when a fin, a very large fin, breaks the surface of the water in such a quiet manner and slips back into the dark sea.

He was so close to the back of the packed boat and only I saw him. Everyone was still watching the orca quite a bit away from the boat. I believe it was Blackberry, as he is one of my favorites and he was one of the ones we were watching from a distance. I’m not sure but my gut tells me it was. He actually comes close to our boat the next time we visited SJI too.