Sometime in August I noticed a Facebook post about Whale Watching Tours out of Port Angeles. If you know me very well, the two animals that I believe are my spirit animals, are the whale and the moose, with the cat a close third. :) I immediately notified my friend Nikki and soon enough, we booked our plans and off we were on an adventure of a lifetime.
Island Adventures is a company that offers tours out of Anacortes with a guarantee to see whales. I was hopeful, as I have seen them with my naked eye in La Push, Cape Alava, and Hobuck Beach...but nothing compared to our experience on the 22nd. The tour was not disappointing one bit. In fact, the captain, Scott, the deckhand, Eli, and the naturalist and wildlife photographer, Bart, were fabulous. It was worth the money and time and I already know that we will be returning in the spring with our husband's and kiddos in tow. It was that good.
For me, it felt like I was a kid opening a Christmas gift...they were only a few hundred feet from us. At one point, we were watching two move away from the boat, so I sat on the bow to get a few steady pics of those two when a third surfaced right at the bow, exhaling its "whale snot"...It was breathtaking. I shouted, "Oh my goodness, are you kidding me?!" I feel so fortunate to have gone on this tour. This is the third time I have been whale watching and each experience is unique and just amazing to see these majestic creatures in the wild. We saw 12 humpbacks that day. Aside from the bow experience being one of my favorites, I also loved observing a calf play with some kelp and seaweed. It was just too cool.
Looking forward to taking another trip when season starts up in the spring/summer of next year! Here are some pics of my "whale" of a day!
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| Baby |
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| Baby Humpback |
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| Playing in the seaweed |
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| The tail: White markings show their distinct "fingerprint" and the naturalist could identify the whales we saw by those marks. |
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| Going under! |
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| Dynamic duo |
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| Tail |
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| Baby playing in the seaweed! |
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| The one that surfaced by the bow! |
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| Those beautiful Olympic Mountains! |
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| Sea Lions near Race Rocks, Canada |
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| One big boy! |
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| Seaweed stuck as he makes his next dive. |
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| Sparring |
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| A submarine! |
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| How biologists "tag" sea lions to study in the wild---nice tattoo, eh? |
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| There she blows! |
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| Our trip into the Salish Sea! |
Of course, Bart, the photographer/naturalist on board, writes a blog about the adventures and takes some pretty stellar wildlife photographs on each trip---if you click on the 22nd of October, he has many of the same pics that I did, although his was with a much more awesome lens.
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