My girlfriend Di, a relative novice to Sea Kayaking, has been bugging me to be sure to take her out to see the Orca whales some time this summer. I live in La Conner, WA, and do most of my kayaking in Skagit Bay, where the whales rarely, if ever, come. Oh sure, I thought, what are the chances of actually finding them by kayak if we were to look? After all, whale watching boats can cruise the waters at 25-35 mph, assisted by spotting aircraft, and they don't always find the whales when they go out. And the only time I've actually seen them from my kayak in the past was in the fall of '97 when they spent a month cruising Dyes Inlet. Hundred of boats went to see them then, knowing they were confining themselves to the 8-mile long Inlet that stretches from Bremerton to Silverdale. With Di and I both having busy schedules, it seemed like June and July, the most reliable months to see the whales on the West side of San Juan Island, would slip by without an opportunity for us both to go. But the weekend of the 4th of July (Saturday and Sunday only) was a possibility. Dreary weather leading up to the 4th allowed us to make a late booking for a B&B on San Juan Island. We stayed at States Inn on the West side. For anyone considering staying at a B&B on San Juan, I definitely would recommend it. I finished a 24-hour ER shift (I'm a doctor) at 9 AM on July 3rd, and we headed for the ferry out of Anacortes. Arriving at our B&B in the afternoon, we spent the rest of the day touring the Island by car. We stopped at the San Juan County Park, and at Lime Kiln park, the prime spots for seeing Orcas from shore, but there was no sign of them. Dahl's porpoises played half a mile off shore from Lime Kiln park. We also saw a river otter and a fox, both on land, from the car. The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast, we picked up takeout lunches at the Roche Harbor Resort, then headed to the San Juan County Park to put in. coast of San Juan Island. The body of water to the West is Haro Strait, an impressive body of water 10 miles wide dividing San Juan Island from Vancouver Island. Its powerful currents connect the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia. It was deceptively calm as we viewed it on July 3, and as we put in before noon on July 4. Immediately South of Lime Kiln Park is Deadman Bay, the only official public pullout place along our route. It seems that the guided kayak tours generally go from San Juan County park to Deadman Bay and then back. We had a beautiful, leisurely uneventful paddle South, passing Lime Kiln park on the way South. It's a rocky shore, with only a few pocket beaches for emergency pullout. Tourists sat out on the rocks at Lime Kiln, looking for whales, but on this day seeing only kayakers. After an hour and a half, we reached Pile Point, about 4 Miles South of Lime Kiln, where there was a beautiful secluded pocket beach that made an ideal lunch spot. A few sport fishing boats were trying there luck in the area. I talked to one fisherman who said they weren't having much luck with salmon, so he was trying for bottomfish. We had a self-imposed deadline of 5 PM to get back to San Juan County Park, in order to catch the 6:55 ferry out of Friday Harbor. Leaving our lunch spot, I noticed that there were quite a few more fishing boats in the area. I was thinking it must be the time of day. Just as I started to realize that some of these boats didn't look at all like fishermen, an Orca rose in front of me a couple of hundred yards out! Then I could see that there were about 20 boats (but no kayaks) in the general area, many of which were tourist boats chartered specifically for whale watching. I paddled out quickly to the vicinity of my first Orca sighting. I drummed my fingers a little on the deck of my kayak, having heard this might attract curious whales. A few minutes later, I heard a spout directly behind me! I turned to see 2 Orcas surfacing directly behind me not more than 20 yards away and headed straight at me! It appeared to me that they would be coming up in a few seconds right under me! Not wanting to look like prey that might be trying to swim away from them, I turned my kayak as quickly as I could to face where I had just seen them. But they didn't surface again right at that time. It was by then obvious that we were in the middle of a pod of whales. They were spread out to perhaps a quarter mile off shore or more. Much to our delight, they were generally heading in the same direction we needed to go. And because they appeared to be feeding, not just traveling in a straight line, their overall pace pretty well matched our own as we headed back. We ended up paddling with this pod for about an hour! Only toward the end of this time, about a mile South of Lime Kiln Park, did we encounter 3 other kayakers who also saw them. We had whales all around us! Usually I would hear them spout before I would see them. It appeared that most of them were females. One female surfaced just 10 yards off my port side, traveling in parallel with me. There was a mother and calf a little farther away. And we watched a male go in close to shore, apparently chasing salmon. As he headed back to deeper water, he crossed only about 30 yards in front of me! He would gradually come to the surface, so you would first see just the tip of his dorsal fin. Gradually we would see more and more fin until finally its full 6 feet would be out of the water! A mile South of Lime Kiln, the whales left us, probably turning back to make another pass of feeding toward Pile Point. Reaching Deadman Bay, we encountered large groups of guided kayakers on tour, none of whom had had the opportunity to see the whales that day. I thought Di might be tired, and suggested she could pull out at Deadman Bay and I would paddle back the rest of the way, get the car, and then pick her up. She wasn't at all interested, so we continued on. The weather had been very mild, cool, with only a slight breeze. The waters where we had paddled with the whales were quite calm, even though mostly influenced by the great open waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. But between Lime Kiln point and San Juan County Park, Haro Strait taught us a lesson! In spite of the calm weather, we began encountering heavier and heavier seas, until we found ourselves in confused 4-foot waves! It was hard to believe that on this calm day, Di was disappearing from me in the waves. It was challenging enough for me in my tippy racing boat, an X-Par Missile, which is 23 feet long and 18 inches wide. And it was by far the roughest water Di had ever been in. We paddled close to a mile in these conditions, with nowhere to pull out. Finally we reached the bay of San Juan County Park, where the waters smoothed out. It was an adventure we won't soon forget! *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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