Sunday June 22nd
Whale Watching
We knew when we were planning this trip years ago, that we wanted to make sure that we did a whale watching tour when we were in Anacortes. I waited until we would know what the weather was going to be for this week and booked the tour. We went with Island Adventures after reading about them in a few blog posts and reading their reviews. We settled on a 3-3.5 hour tour, even though they do offer 6, 8 and 12 hour tours. We woke up and dressed in a lot of layers after reading the email that warned how cold it could get on the boat and headed to the port. Another reason we went with this company, was that they sailed from Anacortes, so we did not have to hop on a ferry for the tour. We drove less than 10 minutes down the road and we were there.
We boarded their boat and it was really nice! They had an indoor section with tables at the bottom with a store that sold merchandise, food and drinks. The next floor had seats in the front and back outside and an indoor section, and then there was a top level that was outside. We settled on some seats in the back on the second floor. The tour had a guide who talked throughout the ride who was very knowledgeable and entertaining. He also took pictures with a nice camera that you could buy on a memory stick at the end of the tour. That was really great because then I did not have to worry about trying to get a ton of pictures, instead I just enjoyed the ride. As we left the port, we saw some really pretty starfish, seals and porpoises.
It was beautiful at the back of the boat, but it was COLD. Even in all of our layers, we got really chilly, so we headed inside and grabbed some hot chocolates and warmed up a bit. Pretty soon after that, they heard on the radio that a pod of orcas was spotted and the captain headed towards them. We went back to the second level of the boat and were able to see the whales. The guide was able to look at the markings of the whales and determine exactly who they were and tell us all about them. It was a group of four whales, a mom and her three sons. The oldest son was huge, but he was not even close to being full grown. We learned that these were mammal eating orcas called Bigg’s or transient whales.
We enjoyed watching these whales for another 30 minutes or so and then sailed off to see if we could find anything else. We stopped by two sea lions that were hanging out on a buoy and spotted a few more porpoises.
Not having any luck finding more whales, we went back to the original pod and watched them for awhile. We then sailed back to the port and disembarked. It was an incredible experience and even though it was really cold, I would do it again in a heartbeat!
It was too late to catch a ferry to one of the islands and still pretty cold and gloomy outside, so we decided to have another slow day. We took the dogs on a walk along the water and spotted another one of our little seal friends. I can’t get over how cute they are and they seem to like watching us and the dogs walk by. We went back to the RV and watched the last of our Harry Potter movies and cleaned up the RV so that we would be ready to move to our next spot the next day.