Rain, a humpback, and the art of radar maintenance...

The day started drizzly.  And cold.  And just enough breeze to make it feel even colder.  The weather weasels said the precip would end by 11:00... just right for our noon departure.  Yeah, they lied.  Big surprise.

The guests were tentative with the rain and the fact that there were no whale reports.  I explained how all the members of the Pacific Whale Watch Association work together - and how we would go about looking.  With no sign of the residents, I set off, hunting for what the transient Orcas eat... we found seals and some harbor porpoise, and none of them looked worried.  ;-)  A sign that there aren't any transients in the area.  The visibility started to drop... oh, fun.  I turned on the radar and the screen came back with only concentric circles - no targets.  Even more fun.

Then, a report: "I just had a humpback come up in front of our boat."  We were about 40 minutes away from that sighting - I came down from the helm and told the guests about it... they were excited to go check out a humpback.  With no Orcas in the area, I let them know there would be plenty of other boats there.  Another plus: visibility was reported better there than where we were.

I pushed the throttle forward and headed south.  The humpback was coming up San Juan Channel.  If he kept going that speed and direction, he would pass just outside of Friday Harbor.  We caught up with the lone humpback south of Friday Harbor and joined the 10 other boats that were already viewing.  Before long, 15 other boats.  By the time we went in search of other things to see, there were about 20 boats working to get views of that shy humpback.  Unlike typical humpback behavior that we see here, this one was flitting all over the place... he'd come up on one side of the channel, then clear across the channel.  Pretty sure he was laughing at us while he was on a deep dive.  The channel is 400 - 500 feet deep there, so he had plenty of room.

I let the guests know that our naturalist was an expert on humpbacks: she spent the winter working on a boat in Maui, where the smart humpbacks go in the winter!

No photos, too many other boats in close proximity.  I know: without photos, it didn't happen.  Our guests told me they got the coveted "flukes" photos.  I heard the cameras clicking away.  Our positioning was good (most of the time) when he surfaced.

There was still a light drizzle as we made our way through the Wasp Islands.  I was hoping to find a bald eagle.  Even better: a bald eagle was watching a deer swim across the channel.  I haven't seen deer swimming since we were in the Tetons.  The guests were worried about the deer, but our naturalist assured them that deer can swim just fine.  No sooner did she say that, the deer scampered up on the shore and trotted into the woods.  Through it all, the eagle posed... "Check out this profile!"

Turning south between Shaw and Lopez Islands, we were treated to a pair of eagles doing a fly-over.  Nice way to wrap things up.

With the guests thanked and the boat cleaned up, I put on some jeans and hung off the back of the flybridge to open up the radar dome.  One of our other captains thought it might be a broken belt on the array.  Once open, that was pretty close: the belt had jumped off the gears.  I fit it back in place, snugged everything down, and closed it all up... working fine again.

Looking at tomorrow's forecast, I'm going to need it.  That forecast is probably a good thing - since the weasels haven't hit one right in several days... well, you know.  ;-)