San Juan Islands: The Unmissable Excitement of Whale Watch Tour Adventures!
Eco/Green vacations including a whale watch tour from San Juan Island
Attractive, green and unpolluted; the San Juan Islands consist of approximately 170 to 700 small islands (depending upon the tide), which form an archipelago along the Washington coast – just northwest of Seattle and south of the Canadian border. The San Juan Marine Stewardship Area, in northern Puget Sound, provides a protected habitat for an amazing range of sea mammals in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. This has produced a safe feeding and breeding ground for the resident orca pods and visiting whales, porpoise, seals and many other beautiful animals.
Spectacular natural beauty
If you are looking for an activity that takes you close to nature, then an exciting adventure is waiting for you in the sparkling, deep waters of the Salish Sea. The San Juan Islands’ offer whale watching and wildlife excursions where you can forget stresses of daily life and immerse yourself in a new environment of spectacular natural beauty, whilst you marvel at the abundance of sea-life thriving in the islands’ waters.
Orcas, porpoise and seals
The orca (killer whale) is the main focus of whale watch cruises in the San Juan Islands. Tour operators operate between May through the middle of October, with a 95% chance of an encounter with a pod of magnificent orca whales.
Occasionally, whale watchers are fortunate enough to see minke, humpback or gray whales, which for many visitors provides a truly once in a lifetime thrill! However, that’s not all you can expect to see – because these safe waters are also inhabited by the harbor porpoise, the Dals porpoise, and steller sea lions. Harbor seals congregate on many of the the smaller rocks, beaches and reefs, where they raise their pups.
Bald eagle colony
The Salish Sea encompasses eighty-three reefs, rocks and islands, which have been set aside as a wilderness area with over 200 bird species to have an undisturbed habitat to raise their young. Several of the protected islands have the high cliffs and long grassy slopes where seabirds, like pigeon guillemots, cormorants and gulls prefer to nest. A thriving colony of bald eagles nests high up in the tall trees of the forested islands, catching their daily fish in the surrounding waters.
Thrilling adventures
San Juan Islands’ whale watch tours usually take about 3-4 hours, depending on where the whales are located that day.
Moreover, each tour is unique and brings with it the promise of a new and thrilling sea-going adventure, guaranteed to grip adults and children alike with excitement and a sense of pure joy, on seeing at close hand the wonderful sea mammals that also live on our planet!
Conservationists
Make your San Juan Islands eco/green vacation including a whale watch tour as eco-friendly as possible, by choosing a tour provider that uses bio-fuel in the boats and look out for the real conservationists. Some of the tour providers contribute a percentage of their profits towards wild-life conservation and belong to the highly reputed Pacific Whale Watch Association.
Membership of the PWWA is your assurance of a company that has co-operated with scientists, and industry leaders to assist in the production of the national Whale Watching Guidelines and Best Practices.
Enrich your vacation
People who come away from the fantastic San Juan Islands’ eco-vacations that include a whale watch tour often comment on how spiritually uplifting their experience of nature in the wild has been. These tours are focused on enriching your vacation and your life with a new found appreciation of these wonderful animals that need every ounce of our support and protection to allow them to survive.
Don’t miss this great opportunity to include an unforgettable sea-going whale-watch adventure in your green vacations in the San Juan Islands. Whale watching is a wonderful life-experience that will inspire in you a new appreciation of the immense beauty and value of our rich natural environment!