Wildlife Watching with Blackfish Tours (Outer Island Expeditions) from Anacortes

Outer Island Expeditions offers smaller sunset whale watching tours out of Anacortes through their Blackfish fleet. We had never done an evening tour before and previously had wonderful experiences touring during the day –lots of Orcas. So this time we opted to go on their sunset tour since we had heard from multiple sources that wildlife tends to be more active during the evenings.

Our group consisted of about 20, not including the captain, 2 wildlife experts, and a woman in a mid-riff top and short shorts taking about a couple dozen selfies. 🙄 The boat has 2 levels for viewing, the top only allows for 14. While people rotate out often, I was content to stay on the bottom since it offered more shelter from the wind. Brrrrrrr! It was chilly out there! 😉 The bottom level has plenty of indoor seating and even a small bathroom.

This guy was hard to spot –I brought my Sigma 150-600mm telephoto lens and was able to spot this seal using it.

Can you spot the bald eagle?

Our boat took us all over than San Juans, even coming close to Canada… but all we saw were various birds and jelly fish. We joked this was one cold and wet bird watching tour.

Coming upon our 3rd hour on the water, our boat took us to Whale Rocks. No whales but we did see….

…Seals and Stellar Sea Lions galore! Their bulk, ungainliness, and rolls of skin reminded us of my brother’s funny English Bulldog. 😀

The whales must have gone to bed. We didn’t see a single one but we did enjoy seeing other wildlife and the information from the wildlife guides! Outer Expeditions issued us all vouchers to come back for another tour since we didn’t see any whales this time around. Hopefully we will have better luck when we opt for a day tour next time.