Lauren Tschirhart | June 13th, 2026 | M/V Kestrel | 2:00 pm
Our Saturday Adventure Tour started strong after receiving a report from our sister vessel, the M/V Osprey that there was a humpback whale calf breaching right outside of Friday Harbor.
We hurried off the dock, immediately crossing San Juan Channel towards Lopez Island. Suddenly, I started seeing splashing at our 11 o’clock and I alerted our passengers to keep their eyes peeled. We watched as this baby launched itself out of the water as we slowly made our way on scene. As we got closer, the splashing stopped, and we didn’t see them surface for a little while. A few minutes passed when suddenly a large humpback surfaced on the other side of our boat. We had spotted mom! Not a moment later we saw the baby surface in the same location as before, this calf picked up speed and crossed our stern.
These two humpback whales were identified as BCX1057 “Divot” and her 2026 calf. Divot is the presumed firstborn calf of Big Mama, our local humpback celebrity. Big Mama and her lineage are some of the humpback whales encountered most frequently in the Salish Sea. It’s so exciting to see Divot return here with her 5th known calf, adding to this iconic family tree. We didn’t stay with this pair long, as a group of Bigg’s Killer Whales, known as the T046B’s were reported in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. They were heading southwest, and we wanted to make sure we caught up with them before they got too far. We made our way through Cattle Pass and zoomed towards Hein Bank.
The T046’s are a very famous Transient matriline for several different reasons, but the story that stole the show today was the fact that T046B/ Raksha and her 2016 calf T046B5, were part of the only documented case of infanticide in the Transient killer whale population. In December 2016, a mother and son pair known as T068/ Yakataga and T068A/ Ken approached the T046B’s, and killed Raksha’s newborn. The reason this is so interesting, is that we got word that the T068’s were spotted heading northwest out of Admiralty Inlet. Although several miles apart, they were aimed in the same direction as T046B and her family. The idea of these two families occupying the same waterway did not sit right with me, especially since T046B has a new calf this year. Little T046B8/ Pi was first spotted in March 2026. Although these two whale families were at least 30 miles apart from one another, it was eerie nonetheless.
We stayed with these orcas as they headed west, eventually crossing the Canadian border over into British Columbia. After leaving these whales we stopped at Whale Rocks to observe some hauled out Stellar Sea Lions. We got great looks at these roaring giants and then continued north. Divot and calf had still been hanging out just outside of Griffin Bay, so we decided to get one last look at this pair. This turned out to be a great idea as we were once again greeted with splashing. No breaches this time, but that little tyke was throwing its tail around and spy-hopping. We were getting great looks at its rostrum and tubercles, even seeing its tiny pectoral fin at one point. Our tour finished with an epic pass from mom and baby, surfacing next to each other in perfect unison. Mom even brought her tail fluke out of the water on that final dive, which we had been waiting to see all day!