How fun! We were on our way the short 7 mile trip from Roche Harbor to our destination for the night at Deer Harbor. Al was looking off to his right and mentioned that there sure were a lot of boats up that way. He is such a curious guy so was looking with his binoculars to see if anything interesting was going on and sure enough, he spotted them. Orcas! Only one other time in all our travels have we been fortunate enough to see any of these beautiful whales.
Making a course correction, we headed over to what we now recognized was a bevy of whale watching boats, a sure sign of whale activity. The whales were all around us. There were so many of them, probably 10 or more. They tended to run in groups of 2 or 3 whales, regularly going up and down in the water, occasionally spyhopping and occasionally jumping out of the water and crashing back in. We took photos, watched with binoculars and without, and followed them north in Spieden Channel for about 45 minutes. It was great fun.
There were 7 whale watching boats there and about as many pleasure boats. We also spotted a Coast Guard boat and a NOAA boat. The NOAA boat stayed closer than any others and had a guy on the bow with a long handled net. What could that be for, you wonder? I believe I've read that they scoop the whale poop and study it to learn about their diet and their health. They were doing a lot of scooping.
We arrived safely at Deer Harbor Marina and are settled for the night. We have great bbx internet connections here.
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