Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | July 12th, 2026 | 2:00 pm
Today was an especially great example of how every hour is different on the water. In our morning trip, we had watched a group of 6 Bigg’s Killer Whales, and in that time a few other families had also been found in our region. We departed the dock and headed towards Orcas Island where the family we had found earlier in Lopez Sound was now near Deer Harbor. We slowed our speed and soon were once again in the vicinity of one of the cutest families out here, the T46Bs! Since this family was near the harbor, we made an extra slow approach and remained further west as to give them plenty of room to decide which direction they were going to go without blocking their pathway. They began heading west in our direction, so we remained stationary and soon got to see them pass by us… What a beautiful start to our trip! We didn’t stay with this group too long, but we watched a few breath cycles and admired all the young whales with their mothers as they traveled.
From here we continued north west, taking Spieden Channel and heading towards Stuart. Another group of Bigg’s was traveling east, and I was very excited to see the tall dorsals of the T101 brothers! I hadn’t seen the T101 matriline in some time, so it was great to reunite and even more exciting that they were traveling with the T100s! T100 is the presumed daughter of T101, so this was a fun family reunion as T101 traveled closely with her daughter and two grandkids, while her two sons were a bit separate. They were moving along Stuart towards Johns Island, and the group of 4 slowed down along the shoreline and began showing prey sharing behaviors. The 2 brothers continued traveling, and soon the rest of the group continued moving along coming our way! We had remained far from the shoreline since we didn’t know where the 2 boys were going, and with our engines off we could hear the exhalations of all the whales on both sides of us as they passed. The 100s and T101 continued together towards the north side of Spieden while the T101 boys remained further offshore. Once they were all off our starboard side and closer to the shoreline, we continued traveling towards the Cactus Islands. Even from far away, we could see their blows along the shoreline; the back lit lighting made for such stunning looks! We moved through the Cactus Islands and shut down to continue watching them travel along the shoreline from afar. In these conditions, the current was slowly carrying us east… Captain Brian’s lazy river whale watch was officially underway! This was the most magical part of our day. The whales slowly passed us in the perfectly calm and glassy green waters. As the families continued splitting and joining, it was hard to keep track where they were as we had them spread out along the shoreline and then suddenly mid channel. Eventually, it was clear that the trio of the T100s were continuing on ahead of the T101s. The current continued carrying us slowly along, and we enjoyed our parting looks at the whales as they swam further east in New Channel towards San Juan Channel. Once they were a mile away we picked up speed and made our way back to the harbor. This type of encounter is always so magical, definitely not an every day whale watch!
Want 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/