Crew Trip to Sucia Island

This afternoon the owner/captain of Western Prince, Ivan, took his crew out for a dinner picnic to Sucia Island, a small island that's a state park just north of Orcas Island. On the way, we took in some cool sights, starting with a stop to look at the sandstone cliffs at Monarch Head on Saturna Island, one of the Canadian Gulf Islands. There are some amazing geological formations there, like this weird latticework inside a "hole" in the wall. I'm not sure how something like this forms, but I'm definitely going to look into it and will report back:

I didn't know this, but apparently there is a feral goat population on Saturna. Four of them came along the shoreline to check us out!

I took lots of pictures of the crew, but at this stop had a friend snap a photo of yours truly on the front of the Western Explorer:

We then headed over to check out the intense currents at Boiling Reef just off of East Point (the eastern tip of Saturna Island). There were lots of glaucous-winged gulls, harbor porpoise, and harbor seals feeding in the tide rips, but it was the current action itself that was most amazing. Most of the area reaches depths of about 500 feet, but there is a reef about 800 yards long between Saturna and Patos Islands that stretches up to about 20 feet below the surface. With the big tidal exchanges we get in the area, you can imagine what happens when huge volumes of rushing water hit an underwater obstacle as big as Boiling Reef.....lots and lots of turbulance! There are all sorts of tide rips, counter currents, upwellings, and whirlpools. Where steady upwellings are occurring the water looks glassy calm, like in the distance in the picture below. Where different currents are colliding, you get the wave action as seen in the foreground:

We saw several upwellings start occurring out of nowhere. In the case of the photo below, we were driving and the water was glassy calm for several hundred yards in every direction. All of a sudden, there were several standing waves, then an eruption of waves and turbulance all around us and expanding outward. I have never seen such unpredictable water! I can only imagine what the underwater "ride" would be like for a porpoise, seal, or fish.

There were harbor porpoise in literally every direction you looked, probably taking advantage of the currents to do some good feeding. I didn't have the zoom lens on my camera and they are super fast and hard to photograph, but you can see two in the image below:

We then cruised around the much calmer waters of the Sucia Island group (made up of Sucia and several small associated islands) before docking for our picnic. We drove through the larger bay, Echo Bay, and between the two Finger Islands and Sucia:

Then we pulled up to a dock in Fossil Bay, where we got out and had a picnic dinner of sandwiches from Market Chef, a local Friday Harbor restaurant. Here is the motley crew with dinner on the picnic table on the dock:

Next up - a closer look at Sucia and photos from our walk around the island!

The L12s are back!

L41, Mega, off the west side of San Juan Island Wednesday

There was happy news this morning of (mor than two) dorsal fins off the west side of San Juan Island. It turns out the L12 subgroup (a small group of L-Pod whales) had come in overnight, and even better, had hooked up with K20 and K38, who had spent the last four days traveling the islands by themselves. While ideally K20 and K38 would hook up with their own immediate family members again, at least they're back with other members of the Southern Resident Community.

I was out on the Western Explorer today, and we found them off the southwest side of San Juan Island around 1:00 this afternoon. In addition to adult male Mega pictured above, we also saw L25 Ocean Sun, L85 Mystery, K20 Spock, K38 Comet, and at least three others I wasn't able to identify.

They were being the "typical" L12s, heading up and down San Juan Island from Salmon Bank to Land Bank, doing what we call the "westside shuffle". Hopefully they'll stick around for a while.

Enteromorpha intestinalis

Along many of the rocky intertidal zones in the San Juan Islands you can see a bright green algae close to the high tide line. The lighting wasn't great for the photo above, but it really is a striking color, sometimes looking almost neon green. I knew that this species especially thrives in places where there are freshwater seepages (like the crevice in the rock in the photo above), but I never knew the exact species of seaweed it was....until now, thanks to my friend and colleague Captain Pete who shared the intriguing scientific name with me the other day: Enteromorpha intestinalis.

Also known as gutweed or grass kelp, E. intestinalis is a species found worldwide. In actuality, there are several Enteromorpha speices that are difficult to tell apart, especially since the morphology of the plant changes in response to environmental factors. Since E. intestinalis depends on freshwater to stay moist during low tide, sailors used to look for it as an indicator of terrestrial freshwater sources.

The genus Enteromorpha is part of the sea lettuce family, which includes many edibile species that are eaten not only by creatures like manatees but humans as well. Many sea lettuces are listed as being in the genus Ulva, which confused me at first, but apparently the Ulva and Enteromorpha genera were merged. I think I'll keep using the Enteromorpha name because it sounds so much cooler.

What's Going On With the Southern Residents?

K20 Spock with calf K38 Comet, pictured here in the summer of 2005. Today, they were the only two resident orcas seen off the west side of San Juan Island.

I try to keep an optimistic outlook on things, but I'm also a worrier. With the Southern Resident population of killer whlaes being listed as endangered in 2005, I had to balance these two aspects of my personality to find a realistic view of the situations The whales have a relatively small population of 80 some animals and face some very real dangers of declining salmon stocks and toxins in the water, but nature is resilient. With the way things have gone so far this season, however, I'm starting to become more concerned.

On February 6th of this year all three pods (J, K, and L) were seen in the inland waters, and all of the whales not listed as missing last year were present. Not only that, there were two new calves present, and a third new calf seen in J-Pod shortly thereafter, so things were looking relatively good. But since then, things have just been plain weird.

For the first time in more than 30 years, no resident whales were seen in inland waters for the month of April. J-Pod, usually a mainstay come late spring in the San Juan Islands, was actually out of the area for a whopping 44 days before finally returning on May 4th. When they did return, they had the K13 matriline of K-Pod with them, an unusual group to see separate from the rest of K-Pod. I define a matriline, by the way, as a female, her offspring, and her daughter's offspring, the most central unit of killer whale society. Each pod is made up of several related matrilines.

While the whales were "in", they were mostly very, very spread out - sometimes as much as 10 miles. This happens occasionally when they're foraging but it just felt different; on one day J1 and J2 were 7 miles ahead of the rest of J-Pod. The K13s left May 22nd, and J-Pod followed them out west on the 25th, exactly three weeks after coming in from the ocean.

Now we're getting into June, really one of the peak seasons for seeing orcas in the area, and the whales were absent for 12 days straight. (Note: The L12 sub-group came through nearly undetected one of these days - down the inside passage, and not picked up until heading west from Victoria.) Today, a report came in of residents on the west side of San Juan Island....but it was only K20 Spock and her calf K38 Comet, two members of the K13 matriline. It is unusal enough for either K-Pod or J-Pod to split up, as more often than not over the last 10 years of watching them when I've seen one pod, the entire group and all matrilines are present. Occasionally a matriline or two will split off and do something strange, but it is next to never that a matriline will split up. The only time I can think of it happening is when K31 Tatoosh separated from his pod, and that was shortly before he disappeared all together and was presumed dead.

These whales are highly social animals and their family groups are among the most stable found in nature, with neither male nor female offspring dispersing from their mother's group. I was a little concerned to see a K-Pod matriline splitting off the rest of the pod. I was a little concerned to see J-Pod so spread out and spending so little of the spring in the San Juan Islands. But I am downright worried to see Spock and Comet on their own with no other residents thought to be anywhere nearby.....that, to me, means something is just not right.

Hopefully this is not the beginning of a "red alert" for the Southern Resident whales. Hopefully it is just something strange, as so often when observing these whales they start to break their patterns just as soon as you think you've discovered one. But today, I just feel sick with worry that things are not okay in the whale world.

Meet the Pets

We got a new pet last weekend, and when I decided to share some photos of her I realized I've never mentioned my other pet, either. So this is the "Meet the Pets" post.

This is Captain, a kakariki, a type of small parrot native to New Zealand. I've had him for about 10 years and got him as a baby, so young that we still had to hand feed him from a bottle for the first little while we had him. He used to be a very personable bird, who would come out of the cage, sit on your hand, and run around on the floor. Then he reached sexual maturity, which results in an extreme mood alteration in many male birds, and Captain was no exception. He is now quite the biter and doesn't like to be handled. Still, he's very amusing, constantly active, and occasionally speaks his version of the phrases "Hello there", "Good morning", and "Good boy"....the last of which he picked up while staying at a dog groomer's while my family was on an extended vacation.

The newest addition to the family is a one year old chinchilla we adopted last weekend. With Captain not being very hand friendly, it was time to add a furrier companion. Chinchillas are native to the Andes mountain range in South America, and as such prefer cooler temperatures. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as we bring her home, we get temperatures in the 80s for a week. She seems to be doing okay, though, and the cool breeze we get through the open doors and windows down here on the water seems to help.

Since they are native to montane habitat, they've developed a unique behavior of bathing in volcanic dust instead of water. It helps to keep their fur soft and in good condition, and is something you have to provide for them at least a few times a week to keep a chinchilla healthy and looking good. Here is our little pet in her "chinchilla bath house"...I never thought I would be buying one of those!

There is a disagreement as to what to name her, so as of now she has not officially been named. I have a feeling the result of the Stanley Cup Playoffs might be the deciding factor, as a wager has been placed as to who will win the series, and the winner may just get naming rights. So, go Penguins!

Raccoon Family

It's been nice and warm out the last few days, so we've had the windows open into the early evening. The other night, we started hearing these bizarre chittering noises - not the strange prehistoric sounds of a great blue heron, and not quite like the rambunctious mating noises of the river otters. We stepped outside, not really expecting to be able to see anything, but we soon spotted a raccoon straight over on the shoreline from our houseboat.

After watching for a few minutes, some little baby raccoons emerged from behind the mother - first one, then two, then three! It was dark out, so no real chance for photos, but I snapped a few flash shots just to capture proof:

There were some amazing interactions between mother and offspring. At one point the mom climbed up onto a high, flat rock and the little ones weren't able to follow. Two of them went around to meet up with her but the third was "stuck" and kept cooing for her. The mother came back, and reached down towards the young one, who was reaching up. They actually clasped "hands" for a moment, then the mom reached further down and grabbed the baby in her mouth by the scruff of its neck and hauled it up.

The family stayed in the area for about half an hour, vocalizing almost constantly. I decided to try and record the sounds over my laptop, with fairly decent results. You can hear a clip of them chittering here, and I was able to get it to work via my iWeb podcast this time so no downloading is required.

Afternoon Walk At Lime Kiln

After spending eight hours in the office at work today, it was time to get out and enjoy the end of the sunny Sunday afternoon. I decided to drive out to the west side of the island to go for a walk. Before I even got there, I had to pull over to the side of the road to investigate these red flowers that have sprung up along several roadside ditches:

These are red columbine (Aquilegia formosa), amazingly intricate yellow and red flowers when examined up close. The name columbine is derived from the Latin word for "dove", because someone with a bit of imagination thought the petals and spurs looked like five doves perched in a circle.

Out at Lime Kiln Point State Park another new flower had come into bloom: baldhip rose (Rose gymnocarpa). These flowers emerged on a plant I was waiting to bloom, because the leaves and branches had intrigued me but I wasn't able to ID it. It turns out the flowers look nearly identical to Nootka rose (Rosa nutkana), an abundant shrub that I was familiar with:

The difference comes in the spines along the stems:

It wasn't just the flowers that were worth photographing today. The clouds over Haro Strait looked pretty stunning, too:

They've done some clearing out of madrone trees along the trails to open up the view a little bit. On my way out, the pattern of this stump caught my eye. It has some Oregon grape leaves peaking around the edge, but it was amazing how many of the stumps were already sprouting little madrone branchlets.