Levi Vandebunte | M/V Kestrel | August 27th, 2026 | 2:00pm
We left the dock on this day and pointed North up San Juan Channel. We then wrapped around the top of San Juan Island and entered Haro Strait to the West. This huge body of water had multiple whale reports throughout the day, so we were excited to head that way and check it out! It didn't take long for us to come across our first species. We noticed the tall exhalations of two Humpback Whales from way out in the distance. We took a few minutes approaching and started to get looks at these massive creatures. They were a bit spread out, likely feeding separately but in the same general area. We chose to mainly view one animal, but the other was still visible off of our port side. The whale that we were viewing was tons of fun to watch. It was surfacing quite often with shorter dives mixed in between, which is ideal for watching this species! They also were showing their tail flukes multiple times throughout the encounter, which does not always happen. We even were able to get a photo of the underside of this whale's fluke at one point. This is how these Humpbacks are identified. Each fluke is like a fingerprint, and no two are exactly the same! We later discovered that this was a bit of a "mystery" whale. There is essentially no information available on it. There were no reported sightings logged before us on this day. We do not know if they are a part of the Hawaii or Mexico population. The ID of this whale is BCY1354, but they do not yet have a nickname, gender, or age confirmed. I personally think that it's pretty cool knowing that we viewed a whale that such few humans have seen before! We were not able to get a usable photo of the other whale for identification. Eventually we said goodbye to our two Humpback friends and made the short transit over to D'Arcy Island. This is where we encountered our next whale species, two Bigg's Killer Whales! These two individuals are known as T60D "Onca" and T60E "Lynx". They are adult male brothers that are a part of the T60 family, but have dispersed from the group in the past few years. Since 2022, these two are almost exclusively seen with each other. It seems that they are inseparable after choosing the move out of the family together. They affectionately are known as "The Brothers" in this region, and are some of my absolute favorite Bigg's! We watched them move along the shoreline of D'Arcy Island, before turning and heading over to Mandarte Island. They circled this, likely looking for Harbor Seals. I did notice a bit of splashing and thrashing at one point, but it was unclear if they successfully grabbed a meal or not. We also watched them swim through multiple kelp beds while on scene with them. In the past I have noticed that these two absolutely love swimming through kelp, so it was nice to see that that hasn't changed recently. We even saw one of them come up with kelp fully draped over his dorsal fin at one point! We also were lucky enough to see several dozen Marbled Murrelets throughout this encounter. This little bird is endangered, with only about 5,000 of them remaining in the world. This region is luckily home to a good chunk of that population, but I still had not seen any all year up until today. I was stoked to see so many of these little ones! After departing "Onca" and "Lynx", we pointed back towards home. Just before returning to town, we made a stop at a nearby kelp bed just off of Turn Rock. This summer there has been a Sea Otter that likes to hangout in this spot, and he was there today! This is a species that is quite rare to the Salish Sea, as they normally stick to the outer coasts of the Pacific Ocean. We got some awesome looks at him as he gently floated on his back in the kelp. It appeared that he was resting, looking as adorable as ever. We eventually said goodbye, and returned back to the dock to recap a great day on the Salish Sea filled with so many species!
The IDs and details of the four total whales that we saw are as follows:
Humpback Whales (2):
- BCY1354 (Unnamed) (?) b. Unknown
- Unidentified Humpback Whale
Bigg's Killer Whales (2):
T60D "Onca" (M) b. 2004
T60E "Lynx" (M) b. 2008
We thank this group of passengers for joining us out on the water!
Wanting to see more photos from our trips? Visit our SmugMug page at: https://sanjuansafaris.smugmug.com/
More information about the Pacific Whale Watch Association: https://www.pacificwhalewatchassociation.com/