Levi Vandebunte | M/V Osprey | July 3rd, 2026 | 12:30pm
We left Friday Harbor and travelled East this day towards a report of Bigg's Killer Whales. There was a family of whales moving South down Eastsound, which is a waterway that runs right up the middle of Orcas Island. We do not often see whales in Eastsound, so this was pretty exciting! After a quick commute, we approached the T99s right at the bottom of Eastsound. Our timing was perfect, as the family of five whales had just finished eating a meal. This is not always the case, but Bigg's Killer Whales can sometimes be quite surface active immediately after a successful hunt. That sure was the case today, as we witnessed multiple breaches as we slowly approached the group! The T99 family is led by matriarch/mother "Bella". She travels with her two sons and two daughters. Shortly after we arrived, the whales began travelling West along the shore of Orcas Island. We thought that the surface behaviors had come to an end, but were amazed by 5+ more breaches over the next few minutes! We also witnessed tail slapping, porpoising, headstands, rolling, and pec slapping. Eventually, the whales slowed their pace a bit and entered more of a "travel mode". We watched them travel extremely close to shore. At one point they all surfaced together for an awesome look at the entire T99 family. After doing this for a bit, they moved off shore a bit and began logging at the surface for a few minutes. We turned our engines off for a few minutes so that we could hear the whales breathing as they moved past us. Once they had cleared us, we slowly departed.
The IDs and details of the five whales that we saw are as follows:
T99 "Bella" (F) b. 1984
T99B "Holly" (F) b. 2007
T99C "Barakat" (M) b. 2009
T99D "Puck" (M) b. 2015
T99E "Qwiin qwiin oo quii la" (F) b. 2021
After that amazing encounter, we stopped by a large rock that Harbor Seals love to rest on. We saw tons of them soaking in the sun on this beautiful day. From there, we moved just North to a kelp bed off of Turn Island. Lucky for us, there was a Sea Otter floating in the kelp! This Otter can sometimes be found here, but had been missing for the past couple of weeks. I was excited to see him back in his favorite spot! After watching him for a few minutes, we arrived back in Friday Harbor at the end of an amazing trip.
This was an absolutely action-packed day filled with SO much cool surface behaviors. These were the first Killer Whale breaches that I had seen all season thus far, so I was just as excited as each and every passenger today. We had such a great time with this group of passengers and thank them for choosing to spend their day with us here at San Juan Safaris!!!
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/