Lauren | M/V Osprey | Wednesday, May 7th | 2:00 PM
Today’s whale watch felt like a Hallmark Movie, or a game winning Hail Mary pass. The odds were stacked against us, but we prevailed. We left the dock knowing that no boats from Friday Harbor had found killer whales during their morning tours. It was crickets out there. The M/V Osprey decided to head north, aiming for Speiden Island. We slow cruised by the historic “Safari Island” looking at loads of wildlife. We viewed Steller’s Sea Lions, Mouflon Sheep, Canadian Geese and several Bald Eagles. As we were admiring the cascading hillside of southern Speiden Island an exciting report came in... Someone had seen killer whales traveling south in Active Pass! This report was intriguing but also slightly problematic. This was a shore report, so no boats were on the water to maintain coverage on these whales. Another problem, Active Pass is about the furthest north we can go in the Ole M/V Osprey while still maintaining a 3 to 4-hour tour. With no other enticing reports in range, we crossed our fingers and headed north!
We made our way into the Haro Strait and continued north into Swanson Channel, crossing the boarder into Canadian waters. With no word on anyone seeing these whales again, we were starting to run out of time. We were scanning the zone where the whales were likely to pop up, with no joy. Just as we were about to turn around to head back south, we got a new shore report! A Pacific Whale Watch Association member had spotted the whales just north of the Pender Islands in Navy Channel. We made our way to Navy Channel, scanning ferociously. Still no dorsal fins. Navy Channel turned into Plumper Sound, and we still didn’t see anything! Did we miss them? Did they turn around? Was all that excitement for nothing!? Just as we think we are out of luck, 3 dorsal fins appear right at our 12 o’clock! Captain Brain and I rejoiced. I quickly pulled out our telephoto lens, as the only thing sweeter than finding the whales, is being the one to identify them. I snapped a few photos and figured out that we were viewing 3 members of the T100’s!
The T100’s is a family of 4 Bigg’s Killer Whales. T100/Hutchins is the matriarch, who was born around 1979. She was travelling with her two kiddos; T100C/Laurel a 23-year-old male and T100F/Estrella. The sex of 11-year-old Estrella is not currently known. Missing from the family today was T100E/Tharaya, a16 year old female. Miss Tharaya has recently been traveling with the T124D’s!
We got some great looks at these 3 whales before having to leave them. We had a long way home. As fate would have it, Captain Brain spotted 4 more killer whales right outside of Friday Harbor on our transit home! We got a quick look at these whales before making our way back to the dock. Those black and white beauties were later identified as the T065B’s! What a day full of unexpected surprises.
Check out our SmugMug to see photos of all the wildlife from today’s trip at https://sanjuansafaris.smugmug.com/