Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | May 25th, 2025 | 2:00pm
Today’s 2pm Adventure Whale Watch headed out of Friday Harbor in search of whales under sunny skies. We began heading south in San Juan Channel, spotting harbor porpoises and a few harbor seals before making a quick stop at Goose Island to view cormorants and the Cattle Point Lighthouse. We continued south west through Cattle Pass towards the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and eventually saw a few other boats ahead of us among a group of Bigg’s Killer Whales! As we approached the group, we saw that there were 5 individuals and learned through photo ID that this was the 4 members of the T075B matriline along with the female T068. The group was traveling a bit sporadically, but we got many amazing looks at their dorsal fins and eye patches, and got to hear their exhalations at the surface. We got to spend a long time watching them slowly travel through the area, and after they swam under our boat we watched them swim away as we slowly made our way out of the area.
On our way back north, we stopped in Salmon Bank for some bonus looks at a minke ("minkie") whale! Minke whales are a small baleen whale that are quite elusive, so it was very exciting to see the dorsal fin pop up at the surface on the glassy waters! There were many birds at the surface indicating that this whale was likely feeding on a baitball underwater, so we continued to scan the surface to try to get a few more looks. After we lost track of the minke, we continued north for one last stop at Whale Rocks to view a group of Stellar’s Sea Lions. They were quite vocal on the small island, and were a great sight to round out our stellar afternoon on the water!