Lauren | M/V Osprey | Friday, May 30th 2025 | 12:30 PM
We are three months into the 2025 whale watching season here in the San Juan Islands. Three months in, and today was the first trip all season that my guests and I observed breaching killer whales! What an absolute treat this trip was. We left the dock with a loose plan of heading northwest to catch up on a report of a humpback whale over in the Haro Strait. Not long after heading that way we got an exciting update: A large group of killer whales had been found just north of Sucia Island. Northwest no more! As we made our way northeast through President’s Channel we got more enticing news, the large group was made up of three different families of Bigg’s Killer Whales, totaling a whopping 15 individuals! Thanks to photo-identification, the fleet was able to determine that the group of whales we were viewing was the T123’s, T124A2’s and members of the T046B’s. As we slowly made our way over to these 15 whales, it was hard to know where to look. They were divided into smaller groups, all heading in different directions. Most of them headed into Echo Bay, with a few stalled out along the coast. Eventually the group made a collective decision to head south. These families were clearly socializing as we were seeing an abundance of surface behavior. We witnessed whales tail slapping, whales splashing around and whales swimming upside down with their pectoral fins out of the water. These behaviors were incredible, but the trip highlight had to be the triple breach we witnessed. Three different whales, one after the other, fully breached out of the water. We stayed as these whales continued south in Rosario Strait. After these whales passed right under scenic Mount Baker, we decided it was time to depart. On our way back to Friday Harbor we made one last stop at Point Caution to view two bald eagles perched high up on a tree top. I’d say that was a Bigg success!