Olivia Ellman | M/V Osprey | Sunday August 17th, 2025 | 12:30 pm
This week has been epic on the water with so much activity so close to San Juan Island. We left the harbor with reports to the east, so we began traveling interisland. We spotted lots of harbor seals, harbor porpoises, and TONS of jumping pink salmon along the way. We always love to see the biodiversity of our waters, especially when so many species surround us throughout the trip! We continued scanning the coastlines for wildlife (especially whales) along the way as we headed towards the report. Eventually, we traveled through Peavine Pass and reached the edge of Rosario Strait at Blakely Island. We didn’t have to go much further along the Blakely coast before we spotted dorsal fins along the shoreline! A family of four Bigg’s Killer Whales were making their way north tight to shore, and through photo ID we knew this was the T124D matriline. The matriarch of this family T124D herself is named Field, and she travels with her three calves Salish II (born 2014), Lupine (2021), and Dune (2024). The one year old Dune stood out as the smallest as they traveled tightly together. We got amazing looks at the group in the glassy green waters, and we could hear the excited yells from people on shore also getting to see them cruise by. After watching them slowly travel along the shore for a while, they suddenly began circling in one area and we even got to see one of them poke up out of the water in a spyhop! This behavior is probably my favorite to see, and it happened in such a flash we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Once they continued their travel into Peavine Pass, we decided to begin exiting scene and went through Obstruction Pass. We got some last glimpses of the family on the other side as we both made our way west, and continued to watch them surface across the channel as we got further away from them. The calm waters and close shoreline encounter with this family made this trip so memorable!