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There are many activities and much incredible wildlife to be enjoyed in the San Juan Islands.
Activities and wildlife are too numerous to mention on this site, but we just had to mention the whales, eagles and weather to give you just a taste of what special treats the San Juan Islands have to offer.
Kayaking - For hand crafted
sea kayaking trips with
guides/naturalists contact
Outdoor Odysseys - (800)
647-4621
www.outdoorodyssey.com
Fish the productive
waters of the Pacific
Northwest. Experience
heart pounding salmon,
halibut and bottom fishing
in the San Juan Islands with
A Trophy Fishing Charters -
(360) 378-2110
http://www.fishthesanjuans.com
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Whale watching is one of the most popular pastimes in the San Juans.
Resident killer whales (orcas) play in the waters off the west side of San Juan Island, providing a fulfilling experience for visitors watching from the shoreline or a boat.
Lime Kiln Point State Park on San Juan hosts the only whale watching park in the world. More than 100,000 people visit the site each year in hopes of catching a glimpse of the orcas, made famous by the Free Willy movies. Informational plaques at the park tell visitors about these whales that call the islands home.
Complete information about local whales and whales in general can be found at the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, a nationally-recognized research facility. Top-notch researchers throughout the world come to our island to study these amazing creatures.
There are three whale families that can be found in the islands each summer. These are called pods and range in size from 17 whales in K-pod to more than 50 in L-pod.
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Other types of whales occasionally seen in the area are Minke whales and gray whales. There are approximately 15 resident Minke whales.
Gray whales are not a common sight, but sometimes one of the huge cetaceans will travel through the islands on its way to the open ocean. |
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Researchers have raised some concerns about the numbers of boats that follow and float among the pods as they feed, sleep, and play in Haro Strait.
Whale watchers must follow federally mandated guidelines that protect the whales. Always stay at least 100 yards away from the whales. The law is being more strictly enforced with each new whale-watching season.
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Bald eagle watching is fairly easy in the San Juans. The sight of the snow white heads and tails and dark bodies and wings against a pure blue sky takes the breath away from most people.
There are more nesting pairs in San Juan County, 89 at last count, than there are in any other county in the state. Washington has more bald eagles than any of the other lower 48 states.
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Charlie Nash, the county's resident eagle expert, developed some interesting facts during his many years as organizer of the countywide annual bald eagle count. He ran the count from 1963 to 1991 and found that more bald eagles live on the north and northwest sides of the islands because lighting conditions are best for hunting.
The eagle population dropped drastically in the 1970s and early 1980s when a plague nearly wiped out the island rabbit population. Eagles rely heavily on the rabbits for food. Eagle populations also drop every winter when migrating birds head north to mature or to inland rivers to eat spawning salmon. Resident eagles usually live in the islands from October through mid-July, when their young are old enough to fly to salmon spawning rivers.
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Eagles hatch in late spring and begin to fly at 12 weeks old. Young eagles mature at five or six years old, when their mottled brown feathers are replaced with the familiar brilliant white ones.
Eagles mate for life and produce two to three eggs per year. Couples usually have two nests. When one nest gets uninhabitable because of vermin and bugs, the eagles move to the other until the old nest airs out.
Female eagles are larger than males. An adult female bald eagle can weigh eight or nine pounds and have a wing span of six or seven feet. A female golden eagle can weigh up to 13 pounds.
Golden eagles are also popular in the islands. They resemble immature bald eagles. One way to tell the difference is that goldens have feathers all the way to their toes, while baldies have bare ankles.
Bald eagles generally eat dead or dying fish. Some have been seen stealing fish out of seals' mouths. Goldens favor land animals, such as rabbits, rodents and cats. |
| Regulations enforced by the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife prohibit human activity within a quarter-mile of an active eagle nest. County land-use laws prohibit construction within a radius of 300 feet of a nest. |
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For today’s weather or a current forecast that’s easy to read log onto www.accuweather.com
or www.weather.com and insert our Zip Code 98250.
A bit about our weather. Often times when you think of the Pacific Northwest, you think rain! However, the San Juans are in a rain shadow.
The islands are "protected" by surrounding ocean waters, and mountain ranges.
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The ocean temperatures average 45 degrees in the winter and 52 degrees in the summer, therefore cooling the air in the summer and warming it in the winter. The Cascade Mountains are approximately 50 miles east and help to "block" the freezing cold weather systems that come down from Canada. The Olympic mountain range and Vancouver Island tend to push most prevailing winds up into cooler air and force them to dump their rain, keeping the San Juans from receiving almost half the rainfall occurring in Seattle, Bellingham, Victoria B.C and Vancouver B.C does.
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Overall, weather in the San Juans is milder with about twice as many sunny days and about half as much rain as Seattle area. This is because the San Juan Islands are part of a rain shadow that also includes part of Whidbey Island, and an area around Sequim and Port Townsend on the main land. The weather is eternally moderate. Temperatures rarely top 80 degrees in the summer and rarely fall below 30 degrees in the winter. The mean high temperature in the islands varies only 28 degrees between January and August, normally the coldest and hottest months. The mean low temperature varies only 18 degrees.
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The San Juans enjoy all four seasons with winters more mild than Mid-west, East Coast and Canadian climates. Once or twice a year it does occasionally snow here, usually ranging from a dusting to one inch that lasts perhaps one day.
There are an average of 247 days each year when the sun is shinning. In the dry summer months, especially during September and early October, the islands go for weeks without a cloud in the sky. This means that summer brings .8 to 10 weeks of no rain, making this the yearly drought season. The highest official temperature reached 93 degrees (July 1941) and the lowest was 8 degrees (January 1950).
Rainfall in the islands averages 15 inches for the southern tip of San Juan to 25 inches on the northern tip of Orcas Island. |
The wettest month was January 1935 when 13.04 inches of precipitation was recorded at the weather station at Olga on Orcas Island. Another extremely wet month was November of 1990, when an average 11 inches of rain was recorded.
Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, long periods of gray skies, high humidity, blizzards, extreme heat or cold, are almost unheard of in the islands. The islands do occasionally experience a nor'easter when the arctic cold roars down from the Yukon. The highest summer temperatures and coldest winter weather occur when the winds come out of the northeast. The islands have been known to experience small earthquakes. Island tides range over 14 feet with extreme low tides of -4.0 feet to extreme high tides of over 10 feet.
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