Aly Liu | M/V Kestrel | Sunday, September 13, 2026 | 2:00 PM

Today we had the pleasure of taking the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) out on our adventure tour aboard M/V Kestrel! Let’s just say those exposure suits came in handy….

We departed from Roche Harbor and hung a left directly into Haro Strait, where we had a warm welcome from some snotty swells…however, it was nothing our beloved Kestrel could not handle. We trekked across Haro into Canadian waters towards Victoria B.C. after a report...

Aly Liu | M/V Kestrel | Saturday, September 12, 2026 | 2:00 PM

M/V Kestrel cruised north up San Juan Channel and hung a left through Spieden Channel towards Canadian waters, as a recent report of cetaceans had caught our eyes. We passed the northwesternmost point of the continental U.S., Turn Point on Stuart Island, and stopped to do a thorough scan for wildlife by Moresby Island. This gave everyone the chance to actively be apart of a search team and put those new naturalist skills into practice...

Aly Liu | M/V Kestrel | Friday, September 11, 2026 | 2:00 PM

Today was an adventure tour on Kestrel to say the least! The Strait of Juan de Fuca is essentially the Salish Sea’s mouth into the greater Pacific Ocean running east to west between the Olympic peninsula and Vancouver Island, and I had never been as far west into the Strait before today. We also call this body of water the “whale highway,” as it’s a common entrance point for any marine mammal traveling along the PNW coast to change...

Aly Liu | M/V Kestrel | Sunday, September 6, 2026 | 2:00 PM

Every day here in the Salish Sea brings different repertoires of wildlife, in fact, every single hour on the water is different. This afternoon, our boat saw the same group of 11 Bigg’s Killer Whales, the T049As and T035As; however, they were ten miles further north, even deeper into Canadian waters. Today’s adventure tour surely lived up to its name, and those adventure suits came in handy during our nearly 70 mile round-trip!

Kestrel...

Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | September 5th, 2026 | 10:00 am and 2:00 pm

Two adventure tours today in the most beautiful conditions was pretty awesome! For our 10am trip, we left the dock in the direction of some whale rumors but didn’t know quite where the day would take us. It was an especially lucky morning since not too far up San Juan Channel we found that Bigg’s Killer Whale T65A3 Amir was travelling! He has been seen by himself recently, though he sometimes does travel with his mom and...

Lauren Tschirhart | September 2nd, 2026 | M/V Kestrel | 2:00 pm

Our 2:00 pm Adventure Tour had an epic encounter with two different eco-types of killer whales today! Not only did we get to observe splashy social behavior from three different families of Bigg’s Killer Whales (a.k.a Transient Orcas) but we even got the rare opportunity to see Southern Resident Killer Whales as we motored back to Friday Harbor. 

The M/V Kestrel departed Friday Harbor and made our way south in San Juan Channel. We...

Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | September 1st, 2026 | 2:00 pm

We had such a fun adventure to start the month today, finding beautiful conditions to watch whales and lots of other wildlife! Before departing this afternoon, we had a few reports of whales in Canadian waters and planned to check out some reports in the Strait of Georgia to start. We began heading north, and reached the northern part of San Juan Channel before we got another whale rumor in Rosario Strait… The water conditions were...

Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | August 31st, 2026 | 2:00 pm

We had quite an adventure today, ending August with lots of whales and wildlife near San Juan Island! When Captain Brian and I departed the harbor, we had some reports of killer whale activity in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We headed south, taking Cattle Pass and travelling across the banks to reach the first report that was furthest away. Today’s beautiful conditions made it easy to scan in this large strait, and once we made it south...

Aly Liu | M/V Kestrel | Friday, August 28, 2026 | 10:00AM

Every trip as we are leaving the harbor, we alert everyone on board that they are now officially apart of the search team. Between the captain and I, that is only four eyeballs scanning for signs of wildlife. However, now that everyone has been primed as naturalists with intros of common marine mammals to see in the Salish Sea, as well as how to spot them, we have an additional 20 eyeballs. We tell every guest that the search starts NOW...

Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | August 29th, 2026 | 2:00 pm

I was very excited to head out this afternoon because there were reports of a family of Bigg’s Killer Whales I’ve been waiting to see all summer! We departed Friday Harbor and caught up to this family just across San Juan Channel on the Shaw Island side, heading north. It was easy to spot this group of 4 travelling on the shoreline based on one individual, the oldest son named “Yelnats”… It was the T60 matriline! We have recently seen the...