San Juan Island

Note: Make sure your read or view to the bottom for some Orca research trivia!!!

Early Thursday morning we drove to Anacortes where we caught a ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

While we were waiting we saw a barge.

Then our ferry showed up.

It was a brisk morning ride to the island.

MDH and the boys didn't seem to mind the breeze but I stayed inside where it was warm.

It was a beautiful ride.

We even saw my future sail boat.

See picture below.

It took about an hour but the scenery was so enjoyable I didn't notice the time.

Here's our ferry at Friday harbor.

Here's Friday Harbor.

First off we did the most important thing.

We got ice cream at the Friday Harbor Ice Cream Company.

FHICC

I noticed the sign while we were eating and I was too lazy to stand up and walk around the fence to take the picture so there you have it.

It was very, very tasty ice cream.

Can you tell just by looking at her face how very tasty it was!

After our ice cream we explored.

We didn't bring our car with us and so we were pretty limited to seeing what we could get to on foot.

We saw some really neat things and enjoyed the little town of Friday Harbor

But

After a while we realized we were going to miss a lot of the island and so we started considering renting a car for a couple of hours.

While we were looking into renting a car we went to the local chamber of commerce and visitor information center hoping to get some help.

The man laughed at us and told us he couldn't help us if we didn't have a car.....he had absolutely no suggestions or ideas of what would be interesting for us to see and do.

But

We noticed a sign for the Whale Museum and it said that they were starting the "Whale Trail" that day.

So

We ran off to the Whale Museum.

When we got there we discovered that the "Whale Trail" was a shuttle service/tour that would take people to places were they were most likely to see Orcas from shore.

That day was going to be their maiden expedition!

We booked spots for our family on the tour (a 3 hour tour ;-)).

Boy was it our lucky day!

Seriously!

Not only did they have a little mini-bus that they gave us a tour of the island in but they gave us pins and stickers and snacks....lots and lots of snacks!

We ended up at Lime Kiln Lighthouse State Park.

Where we were told the orcas would probably be headed to within an hour.

So we snacked and waited and enjoyed the view.

Oh, and they had binoculars for us to use too.

They were really nice ones too.

This little girl decided she was going to start a rock collection while we were there.

They gave her a plastic bag and she filled it with pebbles.

Not the beautiful ones that were naturally in the area but the gravel pebbles that were around the entrance to the lighthouse.....

Oh well. She thinks they are the most beautiful rocks and they're from where we saw the whales.

After a while we saw these chartered whale watching ships converging just off the coast and we knew it wouldn't be long until we got to see the whales.

And it wasn't at all!

 It was at this point that I stopped taking pictures.

The zoom on my camera wasn't strong enough to get a good picture and I was too enthralled with watching the Orcas through the binoculars to take any pictures.

A man that was with our group got quite a few really good pictures of dorsal fins and he said he'd email copies but he hasn't.....kind of disappointing but that's okay.

The whales were amazing!

The dorsal fins of the males were so tall and straight

It's indescribable really.

It was a dream of Doodle's to see Orcas in the wild and he wasn't disappointed at all.

We all felt so blessed to be there, it was beautiful.

By the time we were on the ferry back to Anacortes I think we were all worn out.

Again the view didn't disappoint.

And our little captain made sure we made it back safely.

For which she got a lot of attention and praise.

When we got back to Anacortes we found a pizza place and had a late dinner.

And then drove back to MDH's sister's place.

It was a perfect day!

Orca Research Trivia:

• There are 3 pods of orca that live in the Puget Sound area.
• They are called Southern Resident Orca Pods J, K and L. ( we got to see some from all three)
• The pods sometimes swim together and sometimes independantly.
• The Orcas you see attacking other ocean mammals on TV are called Transient Orcas and are usually more agressive and travel in pods of 3.
• Resident Orcas don't let Transient Orcas stick around their territory.
• One way researchers can learn a lot about the diet and general overall health of a pod is by studying Orca poop.
• How do they do that?
• A research boat follows the orca pods around and they scoop up the poop to study it.
• It floats? I don't think I've seen it on the beach before.
• It floats for a short amount of time and then it sinks.
• Researchers use orca-poop-sniffing-dogs to spot it.
• They rescue neurotic dogs from animal shelters and then train them to find the poop. They really do want the dogs to be neurotic.
• The dog they were using when we were there was afraid of the water and wanted to only play with a ball.
• They had to carry the dog to the boat and as it's reward when it found the poop it got to play with a ball.

Now go forth and win a million dollars on a television trivia gameshow!