Chris was out of town for almost a week, and the whole time he was gone, I was sick. When he got back I’m not sure if he missed us or the boat more, so despite me not feeling great we HAD to go out on a little boat adventure.
Since I wasn’t feeling great we decided to stay close and just launch at the Everett 10th Street boat launch. We got a later start because we were waiting for the weather to clear up a bit, grabbed lunch and we were off!
It was a bit overcast, but overall the water seemed great. We cruised around for a little bit, then Ryan wanted to fish. We went where we went last time where we had some luck (Northwest side of Hat Island) and dropped our poles in. Luckily we had some luck and the kids caught a flounder. We still aren’t up for all the work of keeping the fish (and still have a freezer full of fish from our fishing trip in Westport) so we threw it back in. The kids mostly like being able to drop in their poles and reel one in.
After fishing we were driving toward Camano Island and both Chris and I saw some HUGE splashes. I hadn’t seen something like that in the water before and we both new we saw some whales. Everyone was so excited so we raced closer to hopefully get a good luck at the whales and not just the splashes.
We were able to see some of the resident orcas (J pod). We followed them for about 45 minutes. The whole time they were breaching and slapping their tails. It was so fun watching them! I’ve been wanting to see a whale my whole life. Every time I would be in my dad’s Mexico boat I would be hoping that we would see one, and we never did. Whale watching in Washington was a dream come true, but I still wanted to “stumble” across some whales. It really was incredible and I’m so happy to share these experiences with my family! It ended up being a perfect day!
I will add that boating in the Puget Sound requires extra awareness. There is a lot of boat traffic, huge logs of drift wood, and being whale wise. Its important to know the laws of boating around whales in Washington and Canada. Information for this can be found here. When we saw the whales we were sure to give them plenty of space and not disturb them.