Olivia Ellman | M/V Osprey | September 21st, 2026 | 1:30 pm
Another beautiful Fall day in the San Juans, we saw so many species of wildlife today in our search for whales! We had a few different rumors of whales in the region when we left the dock, and we decided to head south to see where our day would take us. Our first stop at Goose Island was full of harbor seals, lots of Double Crested Cormorants, and a beautiful Great Blue Heron hanging out in the kelp. We had great visibility looking out at Cattle Point Lighthouse and in the distance to the Olympic Mountains and Vancouver Island. We traversed across the different banks in the Juan de Fuca, scanning for bird activity and other signs at the surface that might indicate any type of whale. Captain Gabe suddenly spotted a big exhalation in the distance, and based on the look of it this seemed to be a Humpback Whale! We slowed our speed once we reached a half mile distance, and watched this whale go on a dive as its large fluke came up out of the water. We slowly approached the area to wait for this whale to surface again, and after a few minutes we saw another exhalation. At first this individual had been travelling north, but with this surfacing we could see the whale had turned around to go southeast so we stayed put. The humpback passed by us and went on another fluking dive, and then we were able to turn around to follow along parallel while maintaining 100 m distance. After getting another beautiful fluking dive, and a photo of the underside of the tail, we could photo ID this whale as a humpback known as Towers, BCX1239, a female that was first sighted in 2006 and is known to go to the breeding grounds in Hawaii! I love that we can figure out who an individual whale is through this process of photo ID, and this was my first time seeing Towers. She continued taking short fluking dives, switching into some surface travelling occasionally. We got some amazing looks at her side profile, even getting to see a “rain-blow” from one exhalation in the lighting. As she continued moving along the southern part of San Juan Island and exploring Salmon Bank, we soon had to depart the area. This time of year we start to see less humpbacks as we approach winter when they head back to breeding grounds, but in this last push of the feeding season I hope to see more humpbacks like Towers!
We noticed a green channel marker nearby with some Stellar’s Sea Lions hanging out along with some cormorants, so we enjoyed some looks at these large pinnipeds as they also checked us out. As we made our way north, we stopped at Whale Rocks to see more of these Stellar’s splashing around and growling at each other. We continued our searching up San Juan Channel, stopping at Turn Rock to find the sea otter swimming around the kelp.
Want to see more photos from our trips? Visit our SmugMug page at: https://sanjuansafaris.smugmug.com/