L22s

The L22s were out today. Only the L-22s, though. The L22s consist of Spirit (L22) and her sons Skana (L79) and Solstice (L89). For more information on the L22s, please check out my friend (and fellow intern)'s blog Orca Encounters. K-pod has not showed up yet, and J-pod has been absent for a while as well. But I was out on Sound Watch and snapped a few good pics. Unfortunately, I did not get the saddle patches that allow easy identification of the whales, so I cannot name them. Oh well.

I believe that this is Skana, because this is a male dorsal fin and Solstice is still "sprouting" his

Seasick Sundays

So today during Soundwatch the tide was coming out. That made the water choppy and me seasick. I was pretty miserable, but luckily I got to get set aside ashore and wait in the harbor for Kate and Eric to get back. So, I've learned my lesson: I'm taking my motion-sickness meds before going out on a boat, even if I've been fine on calmer waters! I don't want to experience that again!

But J pod was out along the west side of the island, and so before I nearly lost my lunch, I got to see them being all playful!

Whale I'll be darned

I went on Soundwatch today, and boy oh boy did I see a lot of whales! It started off with seeing J pod and part of L pod as they were doing the West Coast Shuffle.

The West Coast Shuffle is when the Orcas go up and down the west coast of San Juan Island looking for salmon. There are three pods in the San Juan Islands, J pod, K pod, and L pod. They are what are known as Southern Resident Killer Whales and J, K, and L pod are considered endangered. But aren’t Orcas around the world doing well, Sarah, you may ask. How can these be considered endangered?

My friends, I shall tell you: there is not one type of killer whale, but three. They are called transients, offshores, and residents. Resident killer whales are whales that live in a particular area. The whales here are Southern Residents, which mean they go up a little bit into Canada, but don’t really go anywhere else, except for the ocean to follow salmon. The point is they mainly stay here: in the San Juan Islands. These Southern Residents only eat fish and were some of the most heavily hit by the captures for SeaWorld and aquariums during the 1960s and ‘70s. About a third of the population was taken away, and since Southern Residents only interact with Southern Residents, there are now only 83 whales where there used to be around 200. This is why they are endangered.

Eric, leader of Soundwatch

Among the whales, there are also transients and offshores. Transients are the killer whales that eat marine mammals, such as other whales, seals, porpoises, etc., etc. They travel in small groups all around. Transients are probably the reason why killer whales are called killer whales. Offshores are pretty much a mystery. They live, as the name implies, offshore and not much research has been done on them. It is thought that they might eat sharks, though. This is determined by the wear and tear on their teeth when the rare offshore body is found.

And now a pretty island

But back to Soundwatch today: the killer whales were not the only whales present: I also saw a humpback. It was so cool! My camera was acting up, but I managed to get a few shots. I also saw the flukes of the tail, but my camera would not cooperate, so you will unfortunately not get to see that magnificent sight. But it was awesome!

All in all, I spent about 8 hours on the water today. WOW.

Soundwatch

Every Sunday, I volunteer with Soundwatch, which spreads education about different laws about harassing marine life in the water on the water…via a super tiny speedboat. Last time, we nearly got mowed down by a larger boat, but it changed direction and we were able to speed out of the way in time. We keep it from going into J-pod, though, so that’s a good thing. Soundwatch today was dreary and drizzly, but the water was smooth as glass. There were no major whale sightings, so we hung out to fuel up at Roche Harbor where we waited, and waited…and waited. By noon, there had been no major sightings, so we packed up and headed back to Snug Harbor, our water base of operations.

Then I spent the rest of the day, relaxing and reading, while preparing for future events at the Whale Museum.

Whales Ahoy!

Today was a super busy day! I woke up early because the students of the Marine Naturalist Training Program were graduating and in honor of this, the class had rented a whale watch boat—and I was invited! Despite my earlier luckiness in seeing J-pod, there were no orcas today. But there were plenty of sea lions, seals and even a Minke!

Harbor seals

Steller sea lions

Minke whale!

Minke whales are baleen whales which mean they have no teeth, only a filtering system made out of keratin, the same protein that makes up our hair and fingernails. They scoop up lots of water and small animals, such as ghost shrimp and krill, and then filter it out. However baleen is pretty hard to clean, so Minke whales have a nickname—stinky Minkes. Once you get a whiff, you can never forget. This can be smelled whenever a Minke comes up for air.

Look at the view!

Friday Harbor from the boat

After the trip was done, Kate and I were immediately carted off to the next part of our internship—Soundwatch. Soundwatch is an organization run by the Whale Museum that monitors and records boaters around whales as well as provides information for them.  J-pod was out today, so we had quite a busy day speeding around in our boat and informing people of the proper way to view whales. On our downtime, I even managed to get a few shots, but due to my lack of a telescoping lens, you have to make with zooming in on the photographs themselves. The upside-down black 'v's are the dorsal fins.

This one's a little blurry, but if you look where the blue changes to light blue (in the center), you can see an Orca rolling over to show its flipper!

This one's in the center, right at the line where the dark blue turns to light blue

This is a couple of them, also on the center line where the blue changes color

We spent four hours out there, before heading back to our docking ground. It was quite lovely but the one thing I would have changed was to put sunscreen on my ears! They’re all sunburned!

The day ended, as most have so far on this island, with exhaustion and falling into bed early. I think I’m still a bit jet-lagged and it shows!