Aly Liu | M/V Kestrel| Thursday, August 6, 2026 | 2:00 pm
I hope everyone wore their sunscreen on today’s adventure tour, as it was a beautiful, warm day out on the water. Kestrel, our speediest vessel, cruised north through San Juan Channel towards reports near Saturna Island, and that natural windy A/C sure felt good! As we welcomed our passengers to Canada as we entered Boundary Pass, seven dorsal fins officially greeted us as well. It was seven Bigg’s killer whales!!
- T036/Flapjack — female, born before 1970
- T036B/Tattertip — female, born in 1998
- T036B1/Bhotia — female, born in 2009
- T036B1A/Maple — female, born in 2025
- T036B2/Greenfelder — female, born in 2013
- T036B4/Auk — born in 2024
- T036B1/Bhotia — female, born in 2009
- T036B/Tattertip — female, born in 1998
- T137A/Jack — male, born in 2002
This group was traveling in two spread-out groups. Jack, a nearly full-grown adult male, stood out like a sore thumb with his ~6 foot dorsal fin. On the contrary, two calves also caught our eyes, Maple and Auk. Though the alphanumeric IDs of Jack and the T036s suggest that they are not related, it is theorized that Flapjack is the mother of Jack’s mom, T137/Loon, making Jack this matriarch’s potential grandson!
On the way back home to Friday Harbor, we got great looks of the marine mammals that make up ~70% of those killer whales’ diet: Harbor seals. Here at Sentinel Rock, we also enjoyed listening to Black oystercatchers “pipe,” with sheep from France on Spieden Island in the backdrop.
Check out the photos from today at: https://sanjuansafaris.smugmug.com/
More information on the Pacific Whale Watch Association: https://www.pacificwhalewatchassociation.com/