Olivia Ellman | M/V Osprey | June 1st, 2026 | 1:30 pm
Today felt like an exceptionally stunning day on the water, with views of Mt. Baker, the Olympics, and even Mt. Rainier in the distance! We traveled south towards Cattle Pass, and spotted harbor porpoise and beautiful sea birds coasting along. Our first stop was at Whale Rocks to see Stellar’s Sea Lions, and there were so many all over the island and in the water. We continued south across some of the banks searching for baleen whales especially, since these are great feeding grounds for them. As we scanned, we saw some boats in the distance and got eyes on some black dorsal fins ahead of us… Bigg’s Killer Whales! I was extra excited to see this group of 4 as these had been identified already and were new whales to me: T117A, Nighthawk (34 year old male); his 21 year old sister T117B Nyx and her 3 year old calf T117B1 Noctis; and an unrelated lone female, T172 Katmai (37 years old). They seemed to be slowly meandering north, with long surface intervals allowing us to really admire their dorsal fins. As we approached the southern part of Lopez Island, there was a sudden burst in activity when the group began changing directions and circling a bit. Were they hunting? We saw the little baby tail of Noctis in the air at one point, and then the group began traveling north once again towards Cattle Pass.
We made our way past Whale Rocks once again, and let the whales get a bit ahead in the narrower channel and stopped at Goose Island to look at the cormorant nests and search for harbor seals. It must have been too high of a tide for the seals to get onto the shoreline, so we didn’t see any hauled out, but the sea birds were quite beautiful along the island. We could still see our group of whales in the distance ahead of us, so we enjoyed a slow cruise up San Juan Channel getting this extended time with them. Once they reached Griffin Bay, we got some last looks before we continued on past them back to Friday Harbor. Our trip ended with some final looks at more harbor porpoise in the glassy waters. A perfect day exploring the Salish Sea!
Check out our SmugMug page at https://sanjuansafaris.smugmug.com/ to see more photos from our trip!
More information about the Pacific Whale Watch Association: https://www.pacificwhalewatchassociation.com/