Aly Liu | M/V Kestrel | Saturday, August 15, 2026 | 2:00 pm
Today’s adventure tour began with reports of killer whales in an area of water I had never been before; Eastsound! This body of water is encompassed by Orcas Island; it almost felt like cruising through a lake, except it was salt water, and contained three marine mammal-eating killer whales:
- T019/Nootka/Mooyah — female, born before1965
- T019B/Galiano — male, born in 1995
- T019C/Spouter — male, born in 2001
After watching this matriarch with her two massive, iconic sons travel and mill about, we headed north up San Juan Channel and counterclockwise around Spieden Island, which has one of the most unique histories of any island in the San Juans as a (very) temporary “Safari Island’ in the 1970s. The water here was so glossy and so rich of an emerald green color that I told Captain Vaun I wanted to slurp it up with a straw. Oh, and there were also mouflon sheep from France getting some intertidal algae snacks here.
We rounded the corner into Spieden Channel and stopped at Sentinel Rock to get some good looks at the primary prey item of those Bigg’s killer whales, harbor seals, and suddenly, we were on scene with a completely different family of Bigg’s killer whales on the south side of Spieden:
- T049A/Nan — female, born in 1986
- T049A3/Nat — male, born in 2011
- T049A4/Neptune — male, born in 2014
- T049A5/Nebula — female, born in 2017
- T049A6/Charlie II — male, born in 2022
- T049A7*/Nimbus — born in 2026
It is certainly not every single day that two charismatic families of killer whale are so closeby in the San Juans, but we were certainly grateful it was one of those days!
More information on the Pacific Whale Watch Association: https://www.pacificwhalewatchassociation.com/