Olivia Ellman | M/V Osprey | August 17th, 2026 | 1:30 pm
It is still in the thick of August, and we experienced my first good “Fog-ust” trip of the month as we journeyed south in San Juan Channel and passed through a layer of dense fog near Cattle Pass. We had a report of killer whales in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, so we pushed on and were rewarded with quite clear visibility once exiting the pass! Cattle Point Lighthouse and Goose Island looked a bit spooky in the fog, but we could still see harbor seals and lots of birds in the area. The Juan de Fuca had excellent scanning conditions though, so we continued on to the southwest towards our report while also searching for other whales. We got some great looks at some harbor porpoise passing by in the flat waters! In the distance we soon could see a couple other PWWA vessels that were with a group of Bigg’s Killer Whales, so we continued in that direction and then slowed our speed once a half mile away. I was happy to once again see the T49As travelling in the area! Mom 49A “Nan” was travelling closely with her 4 youngest, but 49A3 Nat was trailing a little ways south of them. We viewed all 6 of them off our port side, enjoying looks at the smallest family members clustered together. The youngest 49A7 “Nimbus” always looks especially cute with each surfacing, and even at a distance Nat was impressive in his larger size. At one point, it seemed like 49A4 “Neptune” had also branched off a bit from the main group so we had a three way split among the family, but shortly after Nat caught up with the rest and all 6 were travelling together pointing north into the Haro. My favorite moment was a quick glimpse of one of them (perhaps Neptune?) surfacing quickly after a bird! The bird escaped and the whale didn’t pursue, but always interesting to see this type of behavior! We watched them continue travelling into the distance before we turned to go back in the direction of Cattle Point.
We explored the different banks in the Juan de Fuca in the hopes of finding a baleen species of whale, but could only find lots of birds hanging out in the area. Whale Rocks was still covered in Stellar’s Sea Lions, so we got to see this second species of pinniped before continuing north in the channel. One last stop at Turn Rock to see the sea otter rounded out our species list for the day!
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/