Saturday, July 19, 2014

Transients...


No, not the boaters who rent a slip for just a night or two.

A rainy start to the day.

The whale reports first thing this morning were kinda bleak: north to the Frazier River or southwest of Victoria in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  The winds are up, so a long trip through de Fuca or the Strait of Georgia sounded pretty miserable.

While prepping the boat, a call came across the fleet radio: "Transient Orcas in Rosario Strait."  That is good news - Rosario is much closer, and the wind is out of the southwest; Rosario shouldn't be too lumped up.

This is the view of the ferry from the helm as I did my paperwork...


We had all of our guests onboard, except for one couple... they were flying in on Kenmore Air, and the plane was running late.  Joan went to the seaplane dock to get them and bring them to our boat.  Time to head out.

I expected a lot of boats on scene... there were.  The whales were just south of the crossing from Anacortes to Thatcher Pass.  Add a bunch of private boats along with the commercial whale watch boats.  The commercial guys know how to play nice, take turns, and not block each others' view.  The private boats were constantly blasting around and stopping, blocking everyone's view.  It took a lot of effort to make sure the guests were getting good views and staying out of others' viewing path.

The Ts were particularly active today, so the viewing was good... a couple breaches, a belly-roll, and lots of feeding activity (the transients are the mammal eaters).  I was only able to get a few photos...




On the way back to Friday Harbor, we took the "scenic route" through the Wasp Passage.  The afternoon light made for some silhouettes - the water was flat and the sun had come out...


Nice way to wrap up the trip.

Little Isabella was looking sweet when I got back to the boat...


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I didn't have time to post this last night - Joan took a couple photos of the rainbow over Friday Harbor...



No word of anyone finding a pot of gold.


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