Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | June 27th, 2025 | 2:00 pm
Our afternoon adventure trip could not have gone more perfectly if we tried! We set out of Friday Harbor already having whale sightings close by, so we zoomed up San Juan Channel and soon found ourselves with a Humpback Whale in Spieden Channel! This individual was slowly traveling east not far from shore, and we enjoyed some beautiful looks at the surface and a few fluking dives. This sighting was the perfect start to our trip as our passengers were quickly equipped with new whale spotting skills. We didn’t stay too long with this humpback since we had other reports of killer whales further away, so we said goodbye to the whale and continued west.
We soon entered the Haro Strait, and had a beautiful ride southwest across the channel towards Victoria on Vancouver Island. It’s always exciting to cross the border, and before we knew it we were in Canada approaching a group of Bigg’s Killer Whales! We knew from other reports that this was a group of 8 individuals from two different matrilines, the T46Cs and T75Cs. I had seen these two families traveling together a few days ago in Rosario Strait, so it was exciting to see that they had remained together and traveled quite a distance since then. T46C1 Tsunami, the 19 year old male, was the only mature male in the group and easily stood out above the rest. While we were quite impressed by his size, it was just as amazing to see a number of younger calves, including the newborn T46C5 along with 2 year old T75C4 Slate and 4 year old T75C3 Flint. We got many beautiful looks at all of the whales, and even got to sit with our engines off and hear their exhalations at the surface as they traveled past us. After a while, it was time to start heading back towards San Juan Channel, so we slowly exited the area and began traveling northeast.
Once we reached Cattle Pass, we stopped by Whale Rocks to view the majestic Stellar’s Sea Lions, and saw a number of harbor porpoise also traveling in the current. We made it all the way back towards Friday Harbor thinking our wildlife sightings were over for the day, but we were still in for one final surprise. The humpback that we had seen at the start of our trip had been slowly traveling down the channel, and was right outside the harbor when we got there! We got to spend a bit more time with this whale, getting to see a number of fluking dives and even a small tail slap! After watching one last beautiful dive, we finally entered the harbor and headed back to the dock to end our perfect day on the water.