Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | September 29th, 2024 | 2:00 pm
Today was the perfect afternoon as Captain Vaun and I headed out on our last trip of the season together. We left Friday Harbor and began traveling north up San Juan Channel to follow up on some reports of whales near Sidney, BC. As we passed Spieden Island, we stopped to look at a few harbor seals hanging out on some small islands before continuing to the Haro Strait. Once we were nearing the Canadian Border, we suddenly saw the dorsal of a large male killer whale! This individual ended up being the iconic T063 Chainsaw, and his mom T065 Whidbey II was traveling nearby. It's always exciting to see familiar dorsals on the water, and Chainsaw is especially well known in these waters. The pair remained split up for some time, so we stayed near Chainsaw until his mom caught up with him and they began traveling together. During this time, we watched them change speed and direction a bit before we suddenly saw one of them come up out of the water in a spyhop! This kind of behavior is most often seen during hunting, and we assumed the duo had caught a seal near the kelp beds since they had been traveling faster and disappearing on longer dives before this. The two whales then continued to slowly travel north, and we got our last looks at them after they had split apart again.
We went back into search mode as we left the area and began to make our way back east into US waters. We made it back to Spieden Island, and slowly traveled alongside the shore to get some looks at the many Mouflon Sheep grazing. As we neared the eastern edge of the island, we also saw at least seven Stellar’s Sea Lions in the water and resting on the rocky shore. This was the perfect last stop to round out our marine mammal findings for the day, and after getting some good looks we enjoyed the sunny ride back towards Friday Harbor one last time.
Interested in seeing photos from our trips on M/V Osprey this season? Check out our SmugMug at https://sanjuansafaris.smugmug.com/.