Whale seen Sunday in Swinomish Channel

No joke! A whale, probably a Gray, swam north through the Swinomish Channel Sunday. Bart Borusinski, of Hope Island, and his son, Jasio, age 5, reported seeing it about 3 p.m.from the Shelter Bay Marina guest dock. He said it was a big one and the first he had seen in his 20 years in La Conner. He said his son had the best look.

Mick Jolley and his daughter Jessamy, age 9, chased it on their bikes from the Rainbow Bridge to the La Conner Marina docks across from its fuel dock.

Susan Gardner Deyo, on Downey Road, followed it in her Gator 4-wheeler, but could not stay with it. She said she saw it three times, that “it was moving pretty fast, it was coming up for air, breaching.” She recalled seeing one as a little girl, that this was the third one she had seen in her lifetime.

“It is not a freak occurrence,” said Sergeant Russ Mullins, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Service Northern Puget Sound marine detachment, stationed in La Conner. “Gray whales coming through areas like that is uncommon but not unheard of.”