Welcome to the Whale Report Blog

Olivia | June 27, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | 11:00am

Our morning trip out on M/V Kestrel definitely started off as an adventure as we were getting everyone suited up in the rain. Despite the June showers, we wore smiling faces as we set out to find the whales we received word about. We traveled north through the San Juan Channel and made a pit stop at Flattop Island to look at some Harbor Seals who were napping on the coastline. Things heated up fast as we then saw a bunch of Pigeon...

Laura C./ 6-26-2019 /  M/V Sea Lion / 5:30pm

Our whale watch this evening was one of my favorites of the season!  Captain Pete, Olivia, myself and a full boat of passengers voyaged north to Saturna Island.  We were ecstatic to find three families of Bigg’s killer whales joined together in what seemed like a celebration!  The guests for this evening’s celebration included the T36As, T65As, T65Bs, and T77A, with a grand total of around 14 whales!  The calves were tail breaching and...

Olivia | June 26, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 1:30pm

What a spectacular day on the water! We started off the trip heading north through the San Juan Channel and rounding the northern end of San Juan Island through Spieden Channel. Prior to this, we had already started to see Harbor Porpoises swimming around which was a fun start to the trip. These Harbor Porpoises are a common cetacean found in our waters. Since they are so shy, we tend to view them as we carry on at speed.

We continued to...

Erin | M/V Sea Lion | Tuesday, June 25, 2019 | 1:30 PM

What a lovely afternoon in the Salish Sea! We began our trip heading north out of Friday Harbor. The sun was shining and we were ready to see some amazing wildlife. We headed toward some reports of orcas near Stuart Island. When we got to Stuart Island, we saw the beautiful lighthouse at Turn Point. Turn Point is the most northwestern point in the contiguous United States. We continued on across Haro Strait, and made it to...

Piper | Tuesday, June 25, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | 11:00 AM

On this sunny Tuesday morning captains Gabe and Pete and I took a great group of folks out on the Kestrel, heading over to the Wasp Islands to try to locate a group of orcas who had been seen by a passing ferry. The group of Bigg’s killer whales were located and I identified them as the T101s, which are a really cool group of a mom, T101, who we think was born in 1973, and her three grown boys, T102, T101A, and T101B! The group...

Erin | M/V Sea Lion | Tuesday, June 25, 2019 | 5:30 PM

What an amazing trip it was aboard the M/V Sea Lion this evening. The weather was absolutely beautiful. The water was smooth and the sun was shining bright. We left Friday Harbor and headed south toward Cattle Point, back toward the area where we had seen orcas on our previous tour. We had received some reports that those same orcas were travelling toward another pod of orcas! When we got to Cattle Point, we got some amazing...

Piper | Monday, June 24, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 1:30 PM

On today’s afternoon trip Captain Erick, Erin, and I headed out into the Salish Sea with some really cool guests and we got to circumnavigate Lopez Island checking out all sorts of wildlife! Typically, when we leave the docks we either head up north or down south through San Juan Channel but today we got to go interisland, cutting across the channel and heading between Shaw and Lopez! We kept going and turned south into Lopez...

M/V Kestrel | Naturalist Alexandria | 11AM | June 24th, 2019

What a great day out on the water it was!  When we initially boarded on M/V Kestrel we had no firm reports to work off of, but by the time we had gotten everyone boarded and pushed ourselves off the dock, Captain Gabe and Captain Pete received word of an orca sighting off of Matia Island!

Matia Island is north of Orcas Island so we took a left after leaving Friday Harbor and headed north up San Juan Channel.  We stopped and...

Erin | M/V Sea Lion | Sunday, June 23, 2019 | 1:30 PM

Today was a lovely day out on the water! We began the trip with a harbor seal in the harbor right by our boat! We then left Friday Harbor and headed north toward a report of a humpback whale. On our way, we saw harbor porpoises in San Juan Channel. We ended up near Patos Island and got an excellent view of the lighthouse. We then got to see a bald eagle's nest! Their nest can be 6 feet deep and weigh 2,000 pounds! There was even a...

Jordan | M/V Kestrel | 06/23/19 | 11:00am
 

The day started with clouds floating low in the sky. It wasn’t the typical overcast but somehow much more beautiful as they hid the distant mountains. Captain Gabe and I took the Kestrel out of Friday Harbor and headed north through the San Juan Channel.

We sped towards this beautiful island called Flattop and stopped along its shoreline. Here we found a bald eagle perched high in a tree, its white head glowing in the light. Then we saw...