Happy 3rd Anniversary

We thought it would be great to have a wedding during labor day weekend so that every anniversary would be a 3 day weekend. The past 2 years I promised Ivy I'd take her somewhere and every year we just stay at home. Well this year, I wanted to do something fun. Luckily for me, I had an email from Yelp on an idea for a getaway to the San Juan Islands to go whale watching since both summer and whale season was winding down. I thought what a great idea, so I called and was able to book a motel and whale watching cruise for the weekend. I called Ivy once I booked it and told her I had a suprise for her for our anniversary and she basically guessed exactly what we were going to do. So that took all the fun out of the suprise.

There are never any guarantees on a whale tour. But, luckily for us, we were able to see Dall porpoises, Orcas, bald eagles and sea lions. The guides were really wonderful and knowlegable about the whales. Turns out there are 3 resident pods that live here in Puget Sound, pods J,K and L. Fortunately, J pod was still in the area. Orcas as we were told, are very family oriented and everyone in the pod follows one leader, the eldest female or better known as grandma. In the J pod, the eldest female is 96 years old and still ticking. One of grandma's daugher gave birth recently and we were lucky enough to watch mom and child swim together.


These are Dall porpoises. They love swimming along boats as they go by. As I'm filming, the boat is still moving, so these guys are swimming pretty fast right along us.


This orca is named Micheal and part of the J pod. There's about 27 whales in that pod all following grandma and within 10 miles of each other.

Here are pics of mom and child taken by the tour guide.




This is Micheal doing what's called a "breach". Apparently Orca's don't do this very often, but will come out of the water whenever something catches their attention.

Misc Pics
Waiting at the terminal


Friday Harbor, San Juan Island

Resident mutt.

Resident mutt. I had to take a pic of this kid. He's probably the son of the owner with a permanent scowl on his face 'cause he's pissed he has to work there on a 3 day weekend when he could be playing xbox with his friends.









This is a pic of Speiken Island. It was originally purchased by Alaska Airlines for management retreats, but was eventually sold to current owner, creator of Oakley sunglasses.

Mom and child.

Michael


Dinner at Backdoor Kitchen