March Whale Watching (14. March 2006, 07:55 by Derek Young) ~ Getting Outside Ourselves

We were determined to get outside this past weekend. Snowshoeing? Whale watching? Road trip to the beach? We had just gone snowshoeing in Minnesota a few weeks ago. A beach walk sounded cold and windy. Whale watching won out. There was sad news on Friday in the orca world with the death of Luna, the famously playful orphan, then again, there were also regular sightings of L & K pods all over the South Sound in the previous week. I’ve never been whale watching before. Laura had been once, but only saw seals.

A friend told us about Island Adventures – a whale watching operation that is normally based out of the San Juans but works out of Seattle’s Pier 66 from November to March. We booked ahead and arrived just in time to push off. At the very least it’d be a nice opportunity to hang out on a boat for a few hours on a rare sunny March day in the Northwest.

We were impressed. The boat didn’t seem crowded. There were a few dozen people and plenty of room for all of us to spread out and they even supplied blankets to wrap up in. The galley sold chili, nachos, orca plush toys, postcards, and loaned out binoculars. The two naturalists onboard knew their critters, boats, and seemed as genuinely excited as the customers to see whales…

The boat left Seattle and aimed north. At Whidbey Island we skirted the east coast until eventually we saw a whale. Two, actually.

It wasn’t the quintessential orcas cavorting in the Sound kinda thing that we find on postcards. These were two gray whales. The boat captain spotted them and we cruised around at a safe distance as to see them swimming side by side, feeding near shore, rolling onto their sides and swimming away. It was beautiful. The whales were nearly always at a fair distance away. I need a bigger lens for this camera, when we finally see our resident orca pods, we’ll be ready.