Olivia Ellman | M/V Osprey | June 11th, 2026 | 12:30 pm
The sun is back and summer is here! After some rainy days on the water, it was amazing to be out in perfect visibility and glassy waters. Even Mt. Rainier was out, and probably the most visible I had ever seen even though we are about 100 miles apart! After leaving the harbor, we spotted a sea otter swimming up the channel, but lost track as it disappeared beneath the surface… We planned to try to find it again on our way back. We traveled south in San Juan Channel taking in all the mountain views around us, and spotting many harbor porpoise surfacing in the calm waters. Cattle Pass was also pretty calm, and we saw many cormorants and gulls on Goose Island. We continued to follow up on a report of some killer whales further south, and were happily surprised that by the time we got south of Cattle the whales had been moving in our direction! We quickly came on scene with a group of Bigg’s Killer Whales, who I easily recognized as my favorites the T123s! We have seen this family quite often recently, traveling all over our region. Today they were traveling slowly towards Cattle Pass, and we followed them back the way we had come from. Stanley is one of the largest males we see, and we got amazing looks as he surfaced among his mom and sisters.
They led us back through Cattle, and we got some drive by looks at Stellar’s Sea Lions on Whale Rocks.. Perhaps these whales might be on the prowl for a meal? They continued making their way north, changing speed and circling a few times along the Lopez shoreline but steadily moving north. Since they were taking us back towards the harbor anyways, we got lots of time viewing them. Such a fun afternoon with these whales! Once they began to turn towards Shaw and head more east, we got our final looks from afar and made for the small kelp bed off Turn Island. The sea otter we had seen earlier was now hanging out in the kelp! We got some amazing up close looks at this cute and unique animal, before making our final turn back to the harbor.
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/