What a show!

It wasn't sounding like the best of whale watch days: no reports as we boarded guests.  The weather weasels were predicting solid rain after 2:00.  The Kenmore Air flight was going to be late, meaning a late departure for us... and some guests onboard who couldn't be late getting back due to a close ferry connection.

We let guests know that we would be boarding a few minutes late; and then the Kenmore Air flight appeared 30 minutes before we were told to expect it.  On the radio, a "rumor" that "someone had seen a while from shore north of Turn Point."  A long way to go on a rumor, but we didn't have any other leads.

The sky was looking better as we boarded.  Guests were smiling.  A confirmed sighting, but it was too far away for us to make it there and back in time.  We departed, heading north.  Within 15 minutes of our departure, a confirmed sighting of a humpback in the area of Cattle Pass, heading north.  We turned around, heading south while the whale was coming towards us.  Another confirmation and, "We've seen him breach 3 times!"

Everyone wants to see whales.  If they can see a whale breach, it means a boat full of very happy guests.  I hoped the humpback wasn't giving his best show before we got there.  By the time we got on scene, there were a half dozen boats there, so it was easy to set up our position.  The first thing we saw...

A pectoral fin wave.  Looks like a young humpback, and it was active!  Another pectoral wave, this time while on his back...

Yes, there is a change with the new owners: they don't mind if we take photographs, as long as we are giving plenty of attention to the guests and the situation.  My visibility from the helm area is good, but we set up the boat to give the guests the best view.  Then, a breach...

I saw it, the camera didn't.  All I had with me was my little point and shoot.  Maybe I would get another chance...

Then another.  And another.  The whale was swimming north towards Friday Harbor, we were picking up more boats every minute.  More breaches...

More boats.  Then, something I hadn't seen here before: the Coast Guard plowed through the line of boats to shoo off a private boat that was violating the distance laws...

We spent nearly an hour with the most active humpback I have ever seen.  When it seemed that the guests had seen the best show ever, we pulled away from the group, hoping to see some other wildlife before heading for home.  This was our good-bye view...

We ran north to an eagles nest, but there was no one home.  Out around Jones Island, saw some harbor porpoise and harbor seals, and then...

This guy just landed.  This was the best my little point and shoot could get... but look at that lovely blue sky... the weather weasels could not have been more wrong.

Back to the dock on time.  A pretty amazing day on the water.  Oh, and I didn't have to worry that the had given his best show before we got there - one of our Naturalists, Kevin, counted along with one of the guests: 33 breaches that they saw!!  Kevin was shooting with a DSLR and promised to send me one of his shots that blew me away.

As I walked back to our boat after work, I could see the marina was very busy - boats everywhere, lots of people milling around.  A busy holiday weekend.  I took a moment to shoot another Interesting Boat Of The Day...

No idea what it is, but it is interesting (from my perspective)... pretty swoopy looking.

Joan is closing the office today, almost time for me to walk down and meet her.

:-)

----------------------

On edit:  Joan and I walked up to the store after she closed the office; town is hoppin'.  It's nice to have the store reasonably close by so we can shop almost daily.  As we were walking back to the boat, she commented about a boat that had some kelp on it's propeller, "Looks like he came in during low tide."  (It was an extremely low tide again today; low enough that we loaded passengers on the Spring Street Dock instead of our own dock.)  I had to laugh as we walked by that boat - it looks like he was prepared for a grassy bottom...