Road Trip, Part XV

Saturday, June 4: Aside from my week in the Black Hills and Yellowstone, this was easily the highlight of my entire trip. I had forced poor AP to sign us up for a whale-watching trip that took us from Seattle up past the San Juan Islands to the north, where three so-called “pods” of orca had made their home. Orcas are also known as killer whales and there could not be a worse misnomer in the world. Like the much-maligned shark family, orcas are hardly killers; furthermore, they’re not whales at all but a highly intelligent and inquisitive species of dolphin.

As soon as we set out I realised that despite a pleasant forecast the upper deck of a boat out in open sea can get very, very cold and I was glad I had brought my jacket. The ride out to the islands took about three hours but there was plenty of life in, on and above the water to keep me occupied en route. Cormorants diving for fish like feathered arrows, ducks splashing water over themselves, giant seagulls squawking overhead, puffins and gannets sunning themselves on a beachhead and, best of all, a bald eagle perched high in a tree on a passing island. It was a huge advantage to have a volunteer from the Seattle Aquarium on board – a most amazing lady and an inexhaustible fount of knowledge who, by the end of the day, must have been tired of me pestering her with questions about everything I saw.

Whale-watching is a popular tourist attraction in the Seattle area and while I wonder what effect the continual intrusion has on the resident orca pods I can’t deny the inexpressible joy of seeing a group of orca actually swim towards you to find out who or what is knocking on their door, so to speak. Boats that offer whale-watching tours (often with such amusing but vaguely disturbing slogans such as “Whales guaranteed or your money back!”) are under strict orders to not follow the whales, but the whales themselves can approach the boat. Captains are also permitted to communicate with other boats to find out where the pods are and then sail there, shut off the engine and wait for the whales to come. While this all sounds extremely annoying, like a bunch of groupies stalking some touring rock band, I have a strong feeling that the orca are just as entertained by and interested in the proceedings as we are.

Resident orca pods along the Pacific coast are (unimaginatively) named by the letters of the alphabet starting with the A-pod located up in Alaska. The San Juan Islands orcas belong to the J, K and L pods (I wonder where the “I-pod” lives!) and in the course of the day we located and watched the first two. (Apparently the L pod was out fishing in the Pacific Ocean that day.) Many of them swam over to and across or under our boat, almost close enough to touch. We even caught one spy-hopping, a behaviour exhibited by several members of the dolphin and whale families in which they elevate vertically out of the water and “swim on their tails” to better survey their surroundings.

After an indescribably enjoyable and memorable day we stopped for a late lunch in Friday Harbour on San Juan Island and then made our way back to Seattle around sunset. AP can’t have had nearly as much fun as I did but to his credit he didn’t once complain about being abandoned for practically the entire time we were on the water.