Whale Watching Expedition

Earlier in the spring, I had purchased a deal for the three of us to go on a whale watching trip in the San Juan islands however long story short, we were unable to get it scheduled until mid August, but by that time I was far to pregnant to risk putting myself on the boat. That and I might actually get mistaken for a whale. Luckily grandmama was available to take my place so the three of them adventured out one Wednesday morning to the Bellingham area to get on a boat.

I should mention that the one other time Michael and I tried one of these tours was circa 2000 as a birthday gift to me. When Michael talked to the people on the phone they said that April was the start of the season but yes, they had seen whales already. The upshot was that it was really cold, we saw zero whales but did see some porpoises, seals and other wildlife. After 12 years we were hoping for a better experience.

Upon arrival, the boat captain said he would take them on a one hour trip near Vancouver Island to watch a pod of orcas whales for twenty minutes before continuing the one hour trip back. This did not sound too exciting however no other whales had been seen in the vicinity.  A few minutes later the two boat captains got a call and began high five-ing each other and suddenly became seriously enthusiastic; evidently a transient pod of Orcas whales was offshore nearby Orcas Island hunting seals. Sighting a transient pod rarely occurs and even rarer is sighting them off of Orcas Island (in comparison there are several resident pods that are always in the area this time of year and they exclusively eat salmon, not seals). Grandmama, dad and Harrison were in for a real treat.

Once near the whales, they were able to observe them for about two hours, extending the originally planned time of the tour. They saw the whales hunt and kill seals and dad had a nice discussion with Harrison regarding eating habits and the food chain! Actually Harrison and I had recently discussed the need for humans and animals to eat other animals so the idea wasn't totally foreign to him but he was still learning to accept the concept. In any case, the report back to me was that the experience was exceptional and that if they went again they would probably be disappointed because it would be difficult to top this experience. Unfortunetly for safety the boats keep distance and the cameras they brought didn't have big enough lenses to get any good shots of the whales for you to see here.

Woe is me, poor mom didn't get to see any of it! There was no way I was going to put myself on a boat at 35 weeks pregnant and already experiencing contractions. Instead I had a pedicure and finished up some projects around the house and otherwise rested.