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Morning Trip with Transient Orcas in Smith Bank! | 07/15/2018 | 10:00

Jordan | July 15, 2018 | M/V Kestrel | 10:00

Today’s trip was so great! The morning was lucky to have a clear sky with no clouds and a shining sun. We had a great group of people really excited to go on an adventure! Captain Mike and I heard multiple reports of whales so we decided to take our speedy boat down through the San Juan Channel. Before we headed too far south, we stopped by Whale Rocks and visit the harbor seals that were lounging close to the surface of the water, soaking...

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Afternoon Trip with Resident Orcas and Minke Whales! | 07/14/2018 | 2:00

Jordan | July 14, 2018 | M/V Kestrel | 2:00

Today was a spectacular day full of so many displays of the beauty of nature. Captain Gabe and I headed south through the San Juan Channel past Cattle Point and dropped by the Whale Rocks to check out some seals! They were super cute flopping around on the rocks.

Then we voyaged into the Salmon Bank. Here we boated around the shallow waters until we found a minke whale! Minke whales are the smallest baleen whale in the world! We like to...

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Morning Trip with Humpbacks and Resident Orcas in Middle Bank | 07/14/2018 | 10:00

Jordan | July 14, 2018 | M/V Kestrel | 10:00

It was such a fantastic day out on the water today! Captain Gabe and I heard reports of Southern Resident whales down near Discovery Island in Canada so we headed south down through the San Juan Channel.

BUT before we even reached Cattle Point, we found two humpback whales! It was incredible. These huge whales dove majestically together heading south. In fact, just as we were about to leave, they synchronously dove and both their tails...

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Humpback, Minke Whales & Sea Lions!

Captain Gabe and I headed down to the docks early morning already with some reports of killer whales up North near Point Roberts. Although this is quite far from us, we thought we might be able to encounter these animals in time, so we got the guests on board and hurried up North! As we were heading up the San Juan Channel, we realized that the wind was a lot stronger than we had hoped for. The whales were moving quickly farther north, and the wind was blowing against the current...

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Afternoon Trip with Killer Whales in Trincomali | 07/10/2018 | 5:30

Jordan | July 10, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 5:30 trip

What a great trip we had today! We received reports of whales traveling off of Active Pass up in Canadian waters. So, Captain Pete and I voyaged up through the San Juan Channel, past Boundary Pass, around the west side of Saturna Island and all the way up to Trincomali Channel. It was a long journey but it was definitely worth it when we found the whales!

We found two pods of transient whales, T124As and T36As, traveling together up...

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Killer Whales off Stuart Island for days!

On a sunny and perfect summer day on San Juan Island like today, everyone was eager to get out on the water. As we headed up the San Juan Channel, the wind started to pick up and we were already getting a break from the summer heat on land. We had heard the same group of orcas we had seen yesterday was hanging out around the same area- North West tip of Stuart Island and around the Canadian Gulf Islands. This has been interesting to observe lately because these animals can travel and...

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Perfect Pacific Northwest Day

Captain Pete, naturalist Alexandria and I were excited to work together on this rare rainy day in July on the San Juan Islands. During the summer, the islands stay dry and we usually don’t see rain until mid-September again! Without any whale reports in the area yet this morning, we decided to head North up the San Juan Channel and see what we could find. On the way up, we came close to the West side of Orcas and cut through the inside of Yellow island scanning the waters in that...

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Afternoon Trip with Orcas and Humpbacks in Canada | 07/09/2018 | 2:00

Jordan | July 9, 2018 | M/V Kestrel | 2:00

What a great trip we had today! Even though it was a bit cloudy and cold and it began to rain, the animals sure made up for it! As we traveled north, we stopped by Turn Point on Stuart Island to check out a bald eagle perched right next to the lighthouse! We were so absorbed with the eagle that we almost didn’t notice the huge pod of orca whales sneaking up on us! All of a sudden, we turned around and saw orcas headed straight toward us!

We...

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Two Trips Watching Two Transient Pods in the Strait of Georgia | 07/08/2018 |10:00 & 2:00

Jordan | July 8, 2018 | M/V Kestrel | 10:00 & 2:00 trips

For both trips today, Captain Gabe and I hopped on the Kestrel and booked it up north to find some whales!

On our first trip, the whales were far northwest within the Strait of Georgia so we boated as fast as possible towards that direction. Along the way, we found a huge pod of harbor porpoises! There were about fifty porpoises all around our boat! This rarely happens so it was great to witness. Once we reached the far depths...

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Orca swimming

Two Trips with SJS Whale Watching with Transient Whales in Canada! | 07/07/2018 |1:30 & 5:30

Jordan | July 7, 2018 | M/V Sea Lion | 1:30 & 5:30 trips

Captain Gabe, naturalist Rachel and I received reports of the T124As up in Canada! So, on both our trips today we boated up into international waters to see the whales.

On our first trip, we went up to Canada and found the killer whales off of a tiny island called Blunden, near the south point of south Pender Island. We followed them around Blunden and up the channel along the east side of Saturna Island. The four transient...

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