Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 10th 2025 | 2:00 pm
Today was a great trip out in the Salish Sea! We got to see a lot of British Columbia and the islands east of Vancouver Island.
We started our trip scanning the beautiful waters of Boundary Pass after a trip along Spieden to find Bald Eagles. The waters here were beautiful and showed a strong contrast line between repeating waves and a calming glossy upwelling we were sitting on while getting great views of Mt. baker backdropping Turn Point Lighthouse, the northwest point of the lower 48 states.
Further travel into Canada got us past Sidney’s harbor to meet the 109As, a groups pf transient killer whales consisting of a mother (Runaway) and her 5 youngest children. The youngest of which is 1 year old and named Weiss, a small whale who is quite energetic and likes to show off with little hops out of the water. We followed them along the shoreline and showing some evidence of starting a hunt that may or may not have been successful. They did stop and group up as if to share a kill but otherwise continued travelling as a slow rate and circle around small rocky islands. The oldest son Garrett stole the show for us with his massive dorsal fin tower over the water setting him apart from his family.
On our way back from these whales, we search Mandarte Island for wildlife and got great views of glaucous-winged gulls, heerman’s gulls, pelagic and double-crested cormorants, pigeon guillemots, and black oystercatchers many of which nest on the island. The guillemots will use the holes of the honeycombing on the rocks to nest while the tops of then rocks will host gull and cormorant nest. This island is responsible for a large portion of the global population of glaucous-winged gulls.
We continued onward to Sentinel rocks to look at a huge group of seals hauled out onto the shore. This is the tail end of their pupping season, and we got to watch quite a few young seals hopping about. There was an assortment of fur coloration in the seals of this area due to different evolutionary pressures to camouflage to the diverse assortment of rocks in this area (basalt, sandstone, and limestone dominantly).
What an amazing adventure watching wildlife in the Pacific Northwest! This area never ceases to be amazing!