Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | July 26th, 2026 | 10:00 am
I’ve been looking forward to a fun adventure into Active Pass for some time, and the rain today really made our trip extra exciting. When we departed this morning, there were not many reports yet in our region so we joined the search for whales. We made a stop at Turn Rock outside Friday Harbor to search for the otter, and while no otter this time there were harbor seals and a bald eagle! From here we continued on to the north, planning to head in the direction of some distant whale rumors in the Gulf Islands and Strait of Georgia. We scanned along San Juan Channel and Spieden Channel. Spieden looked a bit spooky covered in fog (so cool!) and there were lots of moufflon sheep on the hillside. Once we got up to Turn Point on Stuart Island, we slowed down to give a good scan around the Haro and boundary waters. Even in the bit of rain, the water conditions were perfect for spotting any disturbance at the surface in our radius. We didn’t find anything so we continued north, getting closer to a report of some whales.
We reached the west side of Mayne Island and began to slow our speed as we already saw the two large black dorsal fins of a pair of Bigg’s Killer Whales ahead of us! One was a large male and the other appeared to be a female. They were taking somewhat long dives, so it took us some time to dial in their behaviors. Soon they committed to going northeast into Active Pass, so we followed along at a distance. Definitely some tricky maneuvering as two BC ferries came through the pass, but the whales continued on with their same slow travel. In the heart of Active Pass, they suddenly began to change directions a bit and switch up their dive times… We got amazing looks at them surfacing! From these closer looks and more surface time, we were able to verify that this was a pair of siblings T30A “Sequoia” (40 year old male) and T30C “Salix” (21 year old female). Their mother T30 has been presumed dead since 2024 and their other sister T30B travels in her own separate matriline now, so this was super sweet to see this sister and brother together. This was also my first time seeing these whales, so all around an amazing encounter. With their dives changing, they also began changing directions and criss crossing a few times. Salix was doing some interesting splashing/rolling maneuvers as well, where we’d see a small wave and disturbance before they surfaced together. We first attempted to leave the scene when they seemed to be pointing north out of the pass, but we waited to see if they turned around… Sure enough, they had turned around again! Once again when it seemed like they decided to turn south, we tried to make our way out of the area in the opposite direction… But they popped up again where we had to stay in place to let them pass! This happened once more when we tried to leave north out of Active, but we got some incredible last looks before they went on a dive and next surfaced 400 m behind us, officially exiting Active Pass and heading into the Strait of Georgia. We departed south from here, spotting some harbor porpoise and lots more harbor seals along the way, as well as more sheep/deer and another eagle on Spieden. This was such a memorable morning, and made us feel so lucky to be out on the water today!
Want 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/