Kayaking With the Whales

A lot of people come to the San Juan Islands hoping to kayak with the orcas. In reality, it doesn't happen all that often - you are a slow moving with a short travel distance in a kayak compared to the fast, 125-mile-a-day killer whales. When speaking on the phone to an expectant client last week, a kayak guide I know said "Honestly, you'd have better odds in Vegas" when referring to the chance of a close encounter with the whales.

Well today, I rolled the dice - and I won.

With many friends and family members in town this week I got a group together to go out with Western Prince's sister company, Discovery Sea Kayaks. Yesterday, the whales were out to the open ocean, but they came back in overnight. We got to our launching point and in the water just in time to see most of the whales continuing on their way well north of us. We rafted up in a kelp bed to watch the last few go by about 300 yards away from us.

The last three whales in the group turned and came straight towards us. They were milling and foraging, so we figured this might be only a temporary shift in direction. But then they surfaced again, still facing right at us. Then again. Before long we were surrounded by whales as they split and passed on either side of the kelp bed we were in. One was feeding, changing directions often with its "fluke prints" visible on the surface. Another was playful, tail slapping, then pec slapping, then doing the cartwheel that I captured in the picture above.

Everyone's hearts were pounding. One man from LA, who had never seen so much as a deer before this trip, had hands shaking so bad he couldn't even click his instamatic waterproof camera.

The whole thing seems very dreamlike in retrospect. It happened so fast, yet the things we saw are frozen in time. Not just in my photos, but in all of our memories - I'll never forget it.

The Little Things

Sometimes it's important to notice (and enjoy) the little things in life. Like this ladybug crawling on a butterfly pea plant that I stopped to photograph along Bailer Hill Road.

J-Pod Families

Today on the Western Prince we got to spend some time with two separate J-Pod family groups. We met up with Js in the northern part of Haro Strait, and they were very spread out with a mile or more between different families. The first group we came across was the J14s. Samish (J14) is the matriach, and her youngest calf Suttles (J40) still looked very small next to her despite turning four years old this year. Hy'shqa (J37) and Riptide (J30) were also there, and they were quite playful on the surface between long dives. At one point Hy'shqa and Suttles surfaced together, and one of them spyhopped while the other lifted its tail high into the air. Later on Samish pushed Suttles at the surface while she waved her little flukes in the air! Despite being the matriarch of the family Samish seemed to be encouraging the play as she lifted her tail, draped in kelp, three times in a row.

Next we found the J22s, a group we affectionately call "The Cookies" since they are named Oreo (J22), Doublestuf (J34), and Cookie (J38). Also hanging out with them was Rhapsody (J32), who often spends time with her aunt Oreo since she has no other immediate family. Cookie was traveling right in mom's slipstream while Doublestuf was a little further offshore lunging at the surface, probably in pursuit of a salmon.

An interesting note about Oreo is that she has little black spots in her eyepatch, as seen in the photo below. Usually the whales' eyepatches are purely white, but I've learned for the last few years that every individual whale looks different. Some whales have clean oval eyepatches while others are shaped like a peanut and have gradual fading edges. It's just another example of how every one of our Southern Resident killer whales is a unique individual!

The L2s Return Too

It was very exciting this morning (Friday) to be on the Western Prince. We caught up to whales heading east right at the lighthouse on Discovery Island, and the group we traveled with was none other than the L2s, who had also been among the "missing" Ls. This was the first time they have been confirmed to come all the way in to the San Juan Islands, and through my photographs I was also able to confirm that the matriach, L2, was in fact still with us, as there were some rumors that she was missing. The above photo is of the adult male Gaia (L78), matriarch Ophelia (L2), and young male Wavewalker (L88). I also got to see some other L-Pod whales, including this calf (either L109 or L110):

I got off the boat and headed straight to the west side of the island, just in time to see a few whales from K-Pod head north, as well as the harlequin ducks in the photo below. Another beautiful day in the San Juan Islands!

Good News/Bad News

I wanted to post an update on a few of my previous posts.

The "point in time" salmon numbers? Turns out its not just a fluke, and also not just a local phenomenon here in the San Juans. The Oregonian reported today that Columbia River sockeye are unexpectedly experiencing the highest returns since 1955. Some runs are 25 times larger than the average over the last decade, and some fish are amazingly traveling more than 450 miles and over eight dams to reach spawning grounds in Idaho. While celebration is in order (these fish are showing the survival capabilities that have allowed them to thrive in the northwest over the last 10,000 years), the news has also immediately sparked a political debate about why these runs have been so successful. While some cite improved ocean conditions, others jump on the fact that Judge Redden (see the "Dam It" post) ordered increased water flow over the dams when these particular adult salmon were smolts. It will be interesting to see if these runs aid the salmon's cause in current court trials.

As for my intuitions on rhinoceros auklets, the news isn't as great. Last night I attended Joe Gaydo's lecture at The Whale Museum, and he indicated that the common feeling is that rhino auklet numbers are down. Coincidentally, this was the one species he wasn't able to provide historic data for, since that data "went missing" with one researcher's retirement. I will post more facts and thoughts from Dr. Gaydos' lecture in the near future.

California Guitar Trio

Last night I saw an amazing concert by the California Guitar Trio at the San Juan Community Theater. Three musicians on acoustic guitars (one from the US, one from Belgium, and one from Japan) demonstrated their truly remarkable craftsmanship, which included a song in the circulation form, where "the notes of the melody are divided into three parts, with each player playing every third note in precisely the right time and tempo".

What, you may ask, does this have to do with wildlife in the San Juans? First of all, one of my favorite songs they played, an original piece called "The Marsh", reminded me of this photo I took a week or so ago along Westside Road. It also re-emphasized for me how powerful music and the natural world can be when coupled together. One of my projects (this winter, if not sooner) is going to be working with my boyfriend to record an original music track to the orca video I put together several years ago. He's going to compose some acoustic guitar and keyboard to go with the footage, which I'll compile digitally. The concert really inspired me to make this project happen.

Additionally, one of the band members was talking about playing a private concert earlier in the afternoon near Eagle Cove, where he was truly moved by the landscapes and seascapes in front of him while he played. He said one song will be forever changed for him because the orcas came by while they played it. While they usually play a concert in a different city every night, their touring agency recommended staying an extra day in the San Juans, since so many other musicians wanted extra time here. He was glad they'd have today to tour the island a bit more. "You guys are truly lucky to live here," he said. He's right.

A Point in Time

I decided to look at some test catch data from the Pacific Salmon Commission to get an idea of how our local runs are doing.

As a scientist, it's important to look at data over a long period of time to get an accurate picture of what's going on. The natural world is a flexible place full of fluctuations that a single snapshot won't capture. Still, sometimes looking at a single data point over several consecutive years can be interesting in its own right.

Here are the test catch results for an area near the San Juan Islands, on July 19th of every year from 2000-2008:

Year	Effort*	#Sockeye	#Adult Chinook	#Juvenile Chinook
2008	295.65	1492	0	0
2007	331.65	66	4	12
2006	311.25	327	1	7
2005	302.85	529	0	1
2004	332.04	9	3	1
2003	289.95	26	1	2
2002	306.03	785	10	29
2001	295.20	657	4	2
2000	318.90	1668	1	2

*It's important to note effort when doing something like a test catch because the amount of time you put in is obviously going to influence the number of fish you catch. If you fish for an hour, you'll obviously be likely to catch more than if you fish for ten minutes. Without going into detail of how they calculate effort, it gives you a rough idea for comparison.

Take from this what you will, but I notice a few things. First of all, there are more sockeye this year than there have been since 2000, which is especially surprising since they predicted an extremely low return this year after a low spawning turn out in 2005. Also, they never catch that many chinook - yet the whales are here anyway, year after year, feeding on them almost exclusively (research suggests).