1-14-18 Something Caught My Eye

Sunday, January 14th

...the sun was shining - finally...I told myself  "out the door and don't come home before dark."...little did I know...

...off to Lime Kiln...I needed to take a picture to finish a blog post...and in order to get the picture the tide had to be high...okay, mission accomplished - it was about noon...

...next stop County Park...I had been looking for whatever would show up...Dall's porpoises riding the wake of a freighter...far out and could only see their splashes but when you know what they are doing, well, it puts a smile on your face anyway...

...I decided I would go to Ruben Tarte Park next, on the northeast side of the island and figured I would work my way down to the bottom end of the island by day's end...however, other things would come into my view...at first something caught my eye as I was parking the car...
...get out the binos and 'lookie-here'...a zodiac...hummm...I wonder what they are watching...from where they were and the direction/speed I knew they were watching something...so very far away...

...now why didn't I have my 'big eyes' with me? - arrgh!...but I kept watching...one very tall dorsal fin came into view! Killer whales!  WOW!  I could not believe my eyes...I saw a couple other boats that I knew and they were spread out, so I knew that whoever those whales were, were also spread out...but I would have to see what came next...

...as the whales came a bit closer, I could see a few far, far off toward the other side of the channel...yes, it looked like they were going to come down San Juan Channel...and they did...
...got a couple images and that let me know those were J Pod whales out there!!!...well, and Onyx L-87 too :)

...the seas were rough and the whales were far from shore and they kept going down island...so did I - to town, hoping they would come by Friday Harbor...

...Oh, my!  They did!...about 6 to 8, spread out, came past the entrance to Friday Harbor - that was just too cool to watch...even though they were so far out...

 ...next, I was about to calculate the time for being at the bottom end of the island, when I saw one of the whales change direction.  

...What?...wait, maybe only foraging...

 ...so glad I waited...because it wasn't long before those who had passed the harbor and gone out of sight, down island, came back and went up island...

 ...it looked as though the current was a pretty strong ebb, but when I got home and looked it said it was more slackish at that time...it was about 3:30 when I saw the last one leave my view, still going up...leaping!

 ...after waiting about 30 minutes, I went back up to Ruben Tarte, but at that time, daylight was saying goodbye...and the whales seemed to have stalled out, still a few miles away...so when I looked at the tide table, it showed me why they likely had (of course I don't know) but about a 7' ebb was just getting started...(note to self: put tide chart on my phone for future reference)...

...evidently J Pod had been north all this time, which is really not uncommon for this time of year, at least in recent years...also it is winter blackmouth salmon season...I'll have to ask the fishermen how their season is going...and whatever they say is likely what the whales would say too! ...so here's hoping the fishermen are having a great blackmouth season :)