Lauren | M/V Osprey | Monday, June 9th, 2025 | 2:00 PM
We started our Classic Whale Watch & Wildlife tour by taking an inter-island cruise. We headed east across San Juan Channel and made our way into Upright Channel. Our first stop was to take a look at an active bald eagle's nest on the northeast side of Shaw Island. After getting great looks at this eagle in its impressive nest, we continued towards a whale report near Orcas Island. I’m not sure if it’s just a coincidence, or maybe the whales know something that I don’t, but most times a whale report leads me to Eastsound it ends up being an incredibly memorable tour, and this time was no different!
The M/V Osprey made its way to the mouth of Eastsound to catch up with Bigg’s Killer Whale family, the T075Bs. This family of four is made up of matriarch T075B/Pebbles, a 30-year-old female who travels with her three offspring. Her oldest is a 10-year-old female named T075B2/Jasper, and her two youngest have yet to be identified as male or female. T075B3/Rubble is eight years old and T075B4/Petra is three years old. This family of whales has a nickname theme of both gemstones and the Flintstones. As we got on scene it almost seemed like they were hunting. They were making swift nondirectional movements, and there was a lot of splashing around. Their movements became directional once more, and our hopes that we were invited to lunch quickly faded away. Both hunting behavior and socializing behavior can look similar. We quickly realized that we were witnessing this family socialize with one another. We watched as these whales circled one another energetically. We saw three-year-old Petra bring her little tail fluke out of the water on several occasions. At one point, the whales split up and we’re surfacing in all different directions around our boat. It was hard to know where to look! You would see an animal pop up on the port side and then as soon as you went over to look at it, you would see another one pop up on the starboard side! These whales had us running around the boat like crazy. Eventually, these whales became directional once again and started heading further north into Eastsound. We took this opportunity to slowly leave these whales, but not before seeing a beautiful Spyhop in the distance! Eastsound once again did not disappoint.