Our 
trip started Sunday in Seattle at an airport hotel where we gathered for an evening meal and brief orientation. The next morning we were put on a bus to Bellingham where we met our private boat, The Chinook. Our luggage was loaded onto the boat and we were underway by 10:00 am. Our cruise to Friday Harbor had barely begun when our Captain got word of sightings of Transient Orcas nearby and we headed that way and were rewarded with views of the big killer whales by 11 am.
After a fun hour or so of whale watching we were served a delicious onboard lunch of lasagna and salad only to have another whale sighting reported closer to shore. We hurried through lunch and went out on deck to try and photograph the whales. I took a lot of pictures but only a few turned out with recognizable Orcas. Still it was a thrill to see them.
A
s we resumed our journey there were also bald eagles to be seen. Not to mention sea gulls and cormorants. There were boats of all shapes and sizes from huge tankers to tugboats to ferrys to sailboats to pleasure craft to whale watching zodiacs. And just to put a little icing on the cake Mount Baker put in an occasional appearance on the eastern horizon.
We finally pulled in to Friday Harbor at around 2:30pm, walked the few blocks to our hotel for the week and had a couple of hours to rest and get organized before our catered dinner at the Farmer’s Market building downtown. All in all a great start to our tour of the San Juan Islands.
Another fun and full day. We headed out to Bru Na Boinne this morning. This is a megalithic burial complex which includes New Grange, Knowth and Dowth. The tombs here date to 3300 BC. Our group went to Knowth where there was one large mound surrounde
d with numerous smaller ones. This picture shows two of the smaller ones. Around the large tomb are kerbstones with megalithic art inscribed on them. Each one is different and no one knows what they mean o
r whether they are, in fact, just art. Here are a couple of examples.
Next up we went out to visit the Connemara Ponies who really just wanted to be fed but let us pet them anyway.
y the bodhran, a sort of Irish drum. Here are my friends Jackie and Susan showing off their new skills.
et a friendly pig. One of our group chose to kiss it on the nose. Yuck.
rut his stuff. Hard to believe we have only one more day in Ireland but it should be another good one.
Sorry, I had to take a day off from the blog yesterday. I didn’t have many great pictures anyway because it was either pouring rain or we were inside. But today I had a chance to revisit the Sea Otter haunts in Morro Bay with the big girl camera and long lens. Pretty happy with the results. Here is a mama with her baby riding on her s
tomach. I think this one is about ready to solo.
uring down rain when we set out but by the time we arrived at our first destination it was clearing up but too muddy for our bird walk. So we proceeded on up the road to a less muddy place where we found few birds but lots of young male elephant seals separating themselves from the herd to avoid confrontation with the alpha males. This one won the prize for cuteness.
After a delicious lunch and a talk about whales we proceeded to the main elephant seal rookery where we found mamas and baby’s as well as alpha males and wanna be alpha males. This first shot looks like a slumber party of females without pups.
is one to prove it. Life is harsh on the beach though and the survival rate is not high. This fellow had been nursing but stopped to take a nap. We learned that the moms do not feed while nursing and lose 450 lbs before leaving the pups to wean. A newborn pup weighs about 75 lbs and grows to 300 lbs before Mom cuts off the milk supply.
But things got pretty exciting on the beach just as we were about to leave. To Alpha males, also known as Beach Master’s got into a fight over territory. It was still going on when we had to head out to our next appointment at the Natural History Museum in Morro Bay. There we saw a video about Humpback whales before proceeding to the Embarcadero for dinner.
It was another full day today starting with a bird walk at a place called Oso Flaco, or Skinny Bear. We saw Scaup, Ruddy ducks, Cinnamon Teal, Northern Shovelers, a green heron, juvenile black crowned night herons, and white pelicans as well as some shore birds and a few black phoebes. The Ruddy ducks proved to be the most photogenic 
though. And then there was this marauding mammal that snuck into the picture.
butterflies but it isn’t going to happen tonight so this view of the clusters where they hang together will have to do for now though it is awfully hard to see that this is really a tree covered with butterflies and not a bunch of dead leaves.
Finally, we had lunch in downtown Pismo Beach and then strolled out on the Pier and around town looking at the shops and taking pictures of the signs. By this time I was almost too tired to enjoy it. The first picture here is an artistic look at the shadow of the pier against the patterns of the waves in the sand. The shorebird just ties it all together. Then we have a great painterly rendition of the Splash 
restaurant. Splash has been providing our catered meals throughout the week.
is is the sunset that was happening last night as I was finishing yesterday’s blog. This, by the way was shot from my hotel room balcony.
found 15. It was still pushing the envelope for the M3 and how I was wishing for my 150
ho actually showed up to try and steal the otters food.