Levi Vandebunte | M/V Sea Lion | July 17th, 2026 | 5:30pm
This tour turned right out of Roche Harbor, and within minutes had sights of Killer Whales! The T65B family was swimming West through Spieden Channel. This is one of my personal favorite families, so I was super excited! They are a family of four whales, and are led by their mother/matriarch "Chunk". She travels with her three sons, "Birdsall", "Nettle", and "Rook". I was especially interested to get some looks at T65B2 "Nettle", as he has had quite the week. On Thursday, July 16th, the family was hunting in some very shallow water between Smith Island and Minor Island. Suddenly, the tide quickly left the area and "Nettle" was live-stranded. The seven-year-old male spent the next several hours stuck on the rocks in very shallow water. The rest of his family stayed nearby for this entire time, circling the islands while waiting for the tide to come back in. Eventually, the tide returned and "Nettle" swam away freely. The family of four was seen all together again just a couple of hours later. Live-strandings are extremely dangerous, and this young whale was extremely fortunate to have survived this experience with minimal harm done. We encountered this group a little more than 24 hours later, and "Nettle" looked just fine to me. He was surfacing with his mother and brothers and keeping up with their pace. I was so relieved to see this! Not long after encountering them, we watched the group successfully hunt down what was presumably a Harbor Seal. The whales shared the prey for several minutes, mixing in some tail-slaps throughout the process. We then watched them turn the corner and wrap around to the North side of Spieden Island. The lighting was absolutely breathtaking over there, and the water was remarkably calm. These were some of the most beautiful looks all evening. We then watched the whales pop over to the shoreline of Cactus Island. Just as we were about to leave, BAM! They had grabbed another Harbor Seal! This time in some extremely shallow water, which made me nervous after their traumatic experience from the day before. But the family handled this hunt with no problems, quickly eating the prey and splashing around a bit to celebrate. The four whales then swam over to a kelp-bed located just off of Cactus Island, and proceeded to cover themselves in it! Killer Whales are very tactile animals, and they greatly enjoy the feeling of kelp rubbing on their bodies. This is a behavior called kelping, and we do not see it very often. This was perhaps the most prominent example of kelping that I had ever seen though! All four whales had their entire dorsal fins absolutely covered in the kelp, and they kept swimming back and forth through it. They were loving it! Just after they stopped playing and began travelling East a bit, I noticed a fifth dorsal fin within the group. It was T65A5 "Indy"! "Indy" is actually the nephew of "Chunk", and the cousin of the three T65B brothers. He may be the most interesting whale in the entire Bigg's Killer Whale population. "Indy" dispersed from his family at an alarmingly young age for a solo male, and has become a master of mischief ever since. He is commonly seen with new scars and scrapes, and his favorite activity is playing with crab pots in the water. He is often seen alone, or hopping from family to family when he chooses to. He's sometimes seen with his own family, but not often at all. On this particular evening though, it appeared that he wanted to give his aunt and cousins a visit! As soon as "Indy" arrived, we noticed lots of splashing within the group, with some flukes being thrown in the air. Perhaps this was an excited welcoming? Who knows! After that we said goodbye to these five whales, and cruised around the other side of Spieden Island. We talked about the bizarre history of it, and were fortunate enough to spot Sika Deer, Fallow Deer, and Mouflon Sheep grazing on it. From there we slowly entered Roche Harbor, admiring the stunning lighting that the sunset was providing. I absolutely love being on the water at this time!
The IDs and details of the five Bigg's Killer Whales that we saw are as follows:
T65B "Chunk" (F) b. 1993
T65B1 "Birdsall" (M) b. 2011
T65B2 "Nettle" (M) b. 2019
T65B3 "Rook" (M) b. 2023
T65A5 "Indy" (M) b. 2014
This group of passengers was very engaged and asked so many great questions. We want to thank them for choosing to spend their evening 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/