Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | July 19th, 2025 | 10:00 AM
I always love our morning adventure trips as we get to help start the first round of searching for the day. When we departed Friday Harbor, there had been one vague report of whales seen in Spieden Channel a few hours earlier. After coordinating with other vessels in our network, we decided to head for Spieden Channel planning to continue west into Haro Strait. We reached Spieden, and traveled along the coast searching for other wildlife while continuing our whale spotting. We found a bald eagle sitting on the cliffside, and then many harbor seals resting at the water’s edge! There were a number of adorable seal pups, proving that we are in the thick of pupping season. As we were viewing the seals, we spotted some moufflon sheep further along the shoreline also at the water’s edge. It’s amazing seeing so much wildlife concentrated in one area, and really showcases our ecosystem biodiversity and connectivity. For one final animal sighting, we saw Canada geese also right along the shoreline!
While we were stopped watching all of these different animals, we got news from another boat north of us that they found a group of Bigg’s Killer Whales! Lucky for us, we were already heading in that direction so it was an easy ride northwest into Canadian waters to reach the area of the report. I was thrilled to find out that this was one of my favorite families, the T123s! We caught up with these whales in between Salt Spring Island and Vancouver Island, and easily saw T123A Stanley’s tall dorsal in the distance. It was especially fitting to find this family here, as mom T123 Sidney is named after the nearby Sidney Island (off of the town of Sidney, BC), and her youngest daughter T123D is named Darcy after another island south of Sidney. We enjoyed beautiful looks at this family of four traveling at the surface, and speculated what they were up to beneath the surface as they continued their travels west. As they pushed on, it was time for us to slowly leave the area to begin traveling back to San Juan Island. This was such a fun adventure morning, and Captain Vaun and I couldn’t wait to head back out in the afternoon and see what else was out there today.