The Mystic Sea

We boarded the Mystic Sea at Anacortes in Washington State. Anacortes is about a two hour drive north of Seattle. The boat traveled through the myriad of islands heading to a spot near San Juan Island where the spotter plane had last seen a pod of Killer Whales. On the several hour trip out the captain informed everyone that a fishing vessel had capsized and sank the night before in the waters we were traveling in. He asked us all to look for debris. When we got to the location the spotter plane had mentioned, there ware no whales to be seen. It took us another half hour to find the pod of whales.

There were 20 to 30 whales in the pod and the captain stopped the engine when he saw that the whole pod was swimming right towards the boat. There are very strict rules about how a boat can function when spotting whales. One woman a week before had slapped the water with her hands from a smaller craft and she was fined $12,000. Our boat was used in the filming of Free Willy 2 when that film was being shot.