From early spring to late summer, the Puget Sound becomes prime whale-watching water as gray whales and orcas follow their varied migration patterns, offering viewers a glimpse of their life in the wild along the way.
“There is something magical about it, and it’s very dramatic, and you just can’t take your eyes off of it,” said Dale Martinis, who offers gray whale tours from Everett and private orca tours from La Conner through his company, PrivateWhaleWatching.com. “Even after years and years and years, they’re just very beautiful and mysterious.”
The season kicks off in mid-March with the gray whales, who can be seen in the waters off Everett and Whidbey Island as they make their way to feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi seas.
With males measuring as long as 46 feet and females slightly longer, these marine giants make a splash — literally and figuratively — as they breach, and their spout can be seen for a couple of miles.
“Gray whales are definitely fun to watch,” said Shane Aggergaard, general manager and whale-watch captain for Island Adventures, which offers gray-whale tours from Everett and orca tours from Anacortes. “… The feeding behaviors we get to watch in Saratoga Passage; it’s one of the first good feeding areas on the way to Alaska.”
In recent years, Island Adventures has worked with the nonprofit Cascadia Research to identify the gray whales that regularly venture into local waters, Aggergaard said.
“Certain whales we actually look for,” he said, including No. 49, known as “Patch” for the patch marking on his right side, and No. 123, who was “a great whale last year, not shy around boats, just a very social gray whale.”
The whale-watching season transitions in May with consistent sightings of orcas, or killer whales, in the San Juans as they migrate to better feeding grounds.
With a length of 32 feet for males and about 23 feet for females, the orca may be smaller than the gray whale, but its black-and-white color pattern is well known thanks to SeaWorld celebrities such as Shamu.
“Orcas are kind of the icon of the Northwest,” Aggergaard said, noting that, with their family “pod” structure, they often can be found in groups.
For Martinis, an orca whale-watching trip is not complete without a trip through Deception Pass, which separates Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island and offers views of breathtaking cliffs and abundant wildlife.
“Every tour goes through Deception Pass, which is really a nice bonus. We stop and look at the pass, we don’t just blast through it. We tour the area,” said Martinis, whose 25-foot Glacier Bay Isle Runner catamaran can play host to as many as six guests at a time.
Whether scouting for gray whales or orcas, it’s a safe bet that the scenery will be eye-catching, as will the seabirds flying overhead. And the whales, well they can be majestic or playful, social or shy — no two trips are ever the same.
Aggergaard’s Island Adventures guarantees whales on all its trips.
“If we don’t see whales, people get to come for free … until they do,” he said.
When it comes to encountering the whales, it’s best to come aboard with realistic expectations, said Aggergaard, whose 65-foot boat is certified to carry up to 100 people.
“We always try to set people’s expectations at a realistic level,” he said, noting that international whale-watching guidelines require boats to remain 100 yards from the whales.
Aggergaard uses two techniques to get his customers a “100-yard look”: For whales in motion, he moves parallel to the animal. If near a feeding area, he uses a stop-and-wait sequence.
“It gives the whale a choice to come up wherever he wants,” he said, adding that it’s not uncommon for whales to come up closer.
The unscripted nature of the trip is part of what makes it wonderful, he added. “Do gray whales breach? Yeah, they do, but you can’t predict when it’s going to happen.”
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