Whale Watching & The Salmon Hatchery

I had so much fun going whale watching! That was the first thing we did and once that was over we went to the Salmon Hatchery. I know that doesn't sound too exciting, but it was really fun. We even went back 2x to the Hatchery. I wish I could have gone Whale Watching again but I couldn't justify it. Anyway, here you go.....

Just after we left the dock we passed 5 Bald Eagles. You can't see them that well in this picture. There are 2 on the left side of the picture right next to the water. Those are the easy ones to see. The other 3, a mom, dad, and a baby, blend into the picture. But they are there. They are on the right side of the picture, half way between the water and the grass. They were farther back so it is kind of hard to see them. FYI Bald Eagles mate for life. No hanky-panky in this breed!

This is the 'whale snot'. You can barely see it because it blends into the clouds. But is is dead center in the picture and makes kind of a 'V' shape towards the clouds. We spotted the whales by looking for when they come up for air. It may look pretty cool but whales have HORRIBLE breath. It really stinks and when we happened to be close to a whale coming up for breath we had to protect our cameras from the junk that comes out of their blow holes. Yummy.

I so badly wanted to get a killer tail shot. But this is the best one. It still looks cool though. We only got to see their backs and tails. But I can't complain, it was still pretty cool.

Now you can see why they are called 'Hump Back Whales'. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any Orcas, aka Killer Whales. They said you don't normally see Orcas, but we did see pictures that someone else took of a pod of 8 Orcas. They were really cool. Too bad you can't see them.

There were a lot of Seals too. Cute.

This pictures was the end of our Whale Watching experience. But it was worth the money!!! I would go again, but only if Stew could go with me.

This is the Salmon Hatchery. The picture is the artificial ladder the salmon have to swim up to spawn. It takes about 3-4 weeks for the salmon to climb this ladder. This picture was taken during high tide and 2 seals started swimming over the barriers to eat the salmon. It was pretty cool.

This picture was taken a few days later during low tide. There is an average of a 20 vertical foot difference in height from low tide to high tide. That was incredible to see happen twice a day.

This is a sun starfish. Like my new dew?

That crab was awesome! Look at how pokey he is. Also the fish just ate a shrimp and although you can't see it part of the shrimp was still hanging out of his mouth.

I am sad to admit that this is the only bear we got to see. And we tried to find them! We even had to look toward the garbage can every time we exited the apartment, for our safety, because there was a black bear that frequented that spot. But no, he didn't come. Punk.