Grand slam! Minke, humpback and two eco-types of orcas!

July 5, 2020 – Our first grand slam! We sailed south and hugged the San Juan Island shoreline down to Cattle Pass. A minke whale was lunge feeding on Salmon Bank giving us some nice looks at him/her. It happened to be one of our regular minke whales who we call “Minke Mouse”. It’s easily identifiable by a nick on the leading edge of the dorsal fin.

With news that the Southern Resident J pod orcas were southbound most of the day from East Point we decided to head up island to catch them on their way down. As we were passing Eagle Point a humpback surprised us surfacing nearby with an arched back and big tail fluke high in the air as it went down on a deep dive. We scanned for about 10 minutes but never saw it come up again, so we decided to keep on our course to the north.

The J’s were making slow progress southbound as they were fighting a large incoming flood tide, but the current helped us make good progress up the westside. As we approached Land Bank we began spotting the blows and fins as the orcas were in sight. The first whales we saw were J16 and J36 followed by J37 with her son, J49. The huge wavy dorsal fin of J26 wasn’t far behind as he pushed south following mom and younger sister. The J19’s were also present and the orcas swam in loose groups close to shore down the island.

With news that Biggs/Transient orcas, known as the T65A’s, had come south down the east side of San Juan Island we decided to come back via Cattle Pass to see them, too. They, too, made slow progress throughout the day traveling southbound down the channel against the flood current. They lingered outside Friday Harbor near Turn Island for quite awhile before crossing over towards the Lopez shoreline. Three of the five orcas were hunting as we arrived (T65A3, T65A4 and T65A6) while mom, T65A, and older brother T65A2 were waiting on the sidelines. The hunt was successful as indicated by the celebratory breaching followed by backwards swimming (evidence that we usually see following a harbor seal predation – the ‘moonwalk’ may have something to do with how they eat the seal as we see this almost always).

It was an exciting full day adventure and we believe our first sail having seen a minke, a humpback, Resident orcas and Transient orcas all in one day!