Whale Watching

We arrived at our first official destination on Sunday afternoon.  Anacortes, WA.  It is part of the San Juan Islands off the northwest coast of Washington.  We decided to schedule our whale watching trip for Monday since the weather was still good. 

 

We made reservations online, but had to check in the next morning at the gift shop.  Really? :)

The big white boat with the red trim was our boat.

 

Waiting to board.

 

Our boat left from the docks at 11:00 am for a 6 hour trip north through the San Juan islands.  During the trip we passed the large Washington ferries that take passengers and vehicles across to different islands.  We also saw small water taxies as well as a few seaplane taxies.

Ready to lift off...

and away he goes.

Washington ferry docking.


As we traveled along we saw lots of houses on the sides of the island mountains.

 

  We had a great view of Mt. Baker in the distance.  Our captain said you didn't get that nice of a view often because of low clouds.

Washington ferry with Mt. Baker in background.

A really neat lighthouse on the edge of island.

 

 

Our first sighting of the Orca whales.  They travel in pods.  We saw as many as 20+ at a time. 

 

There were lots of whale watching boats in the area where the Orca whales were playing and hunting for fish.  Some of the boats were from Canada.  We actually crossed over into Canadian waters in order to get to where the whales were.  The boat captain played the Canadian anthem and made everyone say "Eh" when we crossed over to Canada.  :)  The whales headed south and so did we. 

 

  

 

This was the last sighting of the whales.  You can see the whales blowing water.

 

It was cold and misty on the 2 1/2 hour trip back to Anacortes.  We sat next to a service dog for much of the trip.  Just wanted to hug her.

 

 

 

 

It was a very successful day whale watching.