I knew it was going to be a long day - two trips today, with an evening charter. The day started off with another pretty sunrise...
I did my house husband chores after Joan went to work - I didn't have to go in until noon. Izzy and I had some quality kitty/daddy time. I had lunch at the picnic table behind the office, where Joan joined me for a short time. I did some crew training on the boat before our trip.
The first trip took us north to Haro Strait, approaching Turn Point Lighthouse. LOTS of whales, K and L Pods were moving right along...
Looking back towards Turn Point...
The guests were treated to some nice viewing... at one point, we had whales on either side of us and behind us. It took some time to work our boat out of that situation.
Back to the dock, re-prep the boat, and ready to head out with a private charter. These guests had flown in from Alaska, shuttled from Sea-Tac to Boeing Field, took Kenmore to Friday Harbor... and wanted to see Orcas. The Orcas we viewed this afternoon had moved north far enough that I knew we couldn't catch them - these folks have 8:30 dinner reservations. Fortunately, we had a report that there were still some L-Pod whales in southern Haro Strait. Same Strait, getting there from a different direction. There were still some Stellar Sea Lions on Whale Rocks... but there were no other boats on the whales we were looking for, so we made haste getting to where they were last reported... well, as much haste as one can make with commercial fishermen all over the southwest side of San Juan Island. I have never seen this many gill-netters here before... it was a lot of work getting around the maze of nets they had out.
We found our L-Pod friends and settled in to watch... the first 15 minutes went kinda slow: deep dives, not a lot of surface activity. By this time, a few other boats joined us. We stayed with a big male (Mystery) while the other boats continued north. Just a few minutes later, we saw a large female and a calf... they decided our boat deserved a closer look... and "mugged" us. Then, the young one did a couple breaches. Our quiet evening turned into a great viewing!
I missed the shot of the week, when the large male surfaced close in front of us, with the sun behind him - it was a great silhouette with the spray from his blow backlit. I have the image saved in my mind. We will be done with evening trips in another week or so, and the boat I drive most often generally doesn't have them (other than private charters)... so, this will likely be my last evening trip.
I did get off one kinda silhouetted image...
This was a fun group tonight. I was making sure they would get back to the dock by 8:30... running a bit ahead of schedule, I swung behind Turn Island on the way back in... told them they would get THREE sunsets this evening (something I used to do in the Tetons): one as we turned in towards shore, another where the land dips down behind Turn Island, then another when I swung around for the approach to Friday Harbor.
They were very pleased with their trip - and the timing. Sometimes the whales are cooperative, and it works. The timing with the Inter-Island Ferry worked for us - we had about a two minute period where we could slide in and not get hammered by their wake... and just made it.
Another Super Moon viewed on the way back to our boat...
A close-up...
I have said before how people can get a little crazy around a full moon. Last month it was a full moon, a Super Moon, and Friday the 13th. And we survived. This month, the Super Moon is even a bit bigger and brighter (because it is closer), and nothing crazy went down tonight. Whew!
A long work day, but today is my "Friday." I'm looking forward to a couple days off.
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