Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 10th 2025 | 10:00 am

The morning search started with great success! Our boat followed along the shoreline of Friday Harbor searching for whales and we ended up encountering the T109As! This was quite the surprise having barely left San Juan Channel. We followed along as they explored the coast and passed Roche Harbor. The 1-year-old in the group (Weiss) was very excited and was breaching out of the water quite often! They were quite bubbly and a joy to watch...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 9th 2025 | 2:00 pm

Great viewing out on the water today! Our groups had a great time in between stops competing to find harbor porpoise swimming along us which was fun. We also go to see a lot of seals hauled out on Sentinel rocks which was great foreshadowing to the seal hunting by killer whales out by Sidney spit.

This groups of three orcas we got to watch were the T019s—a mother (Nootka) and two very large adult sons (Galiano and Spouter). After getting to...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 9th 2025 | 10:00 am

We began our search southward, descending into deep and mysterious fog. What were we to discover on our adventure today… 

The most beautiful sea lion viewing I have been to may be this trip. Shrouded in fog and hearing ominous loud growls and barks from these large creatures was incredibly entertaining and gave me goosebumps. We got to see them fighting along the rock tops as their background was abrupt dense fog. It was intense and...

Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | Friday August 8th 2025 | 10:00 am

This morning was already very exciting as we left the dock knowing there were some iconic whales not too far away up San Juan Channel. We’ve seen the T18s over the last couple days, including yesterday when they were traveling with another family. Today it was just the three of them, and once we neared President’s Channel we easily began to see the tall dorsal fins of the two boys traveling a bit behind their mom. While I’m always...

Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | Tuesday August 5th 2025 | 2:00 pm

When we left on our afternoon tour, we weren’t quite sure that we would be able to reach the whale reports. While every hour is different on the water and there’s always a chance of finding whales on our own, we were still hoping to catch up with one of the reports that other boats were updating us on. We left the harbor and headed south towards the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and pointed towards a report of Bigg’s Killer Whales that...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 4th 2025 | 2:00 pm

 What an amazing adventure today! Some great orca behavior was watched and some surprise wildlife popped up out of nowhere.

We started our day going straight over to Cypress Island to look for reported whales. We found a group of 3, including 2 large males, identified to be the T019s. Having not seen this group in the area for multiple months, this was quite exciting! We followed them around the island as they stayed close to shore...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 3rd 2025 | 2:00 pm

Today we had an amazing outing finding all sorts of wildlife in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

After a direct boat ride, we got to reported Killer Whales along the Whidbey naval air station. These whales were a group of 5, the T065As led by their mother Artemis. As we first got on scene, we were surrounded by a large group of Harbor Porpoise that we stopped for before we met up with one of the larger sons in the group seen alone. After a...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 3rd 2025 | 10:00 am

The morning searches were tough! This whole week it has been hard to find whales in the San Juans but today we succeeded! 

We started with a search North with little success. We did however enjoy time with many harbor porpoise and a seal north of Spieden Island. We then began a trip south alogn the West side of San Juan to follow new rumors of whales in the area.

Going deep in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, we found 5 whales who were later...

Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | Thursday July 31st, 2025 | 2:00 pm

When the first sightings were reported for the day, I was not too surprised to hear that the T65Bs had been seen not too far from where we left them yesterday! It seems like this family enjoyed their time exploring the coast of Vancouver Island and continued all the way into the Saanich Inlet, so that was our destination when we left the dock. Captain Vaun and I had been to this inlet only once before, so we were excited to venture...

Kelly | M/V Kestrel | Friday, August 1st 2025 | 2 PM

Captain Sarah and I made our way north to investigate a whale report in Rosario Straight. We pointed north up San Juan Channel and into Presidents channel. Once at President channels northern mouth, we spotted the most pristine bald eagle sitting in a tree on Waldron Island. The stoic bird of prey was perfectly perched atop Waldron's most iconic tree, the one hanging over its most eastern point (local boaters know what I'm talkin bout!). We...