Olivia Ellman | M/V Osprey | Friday, June 20th, 2025 | 12:30 PM
Today’s Classic tour gave us a beautiful cruise through San Juan and Spieden Channels. We began by heading north out of Friday Harbor, and searched along the coastlines for wildlife. Once we turned West into Spieden Channel, we soon saw boats in the distance near Henry Island that were with a group of two different Bigg’s Killer Whale matrilines! Based on photo ID, we knew these were the T65Bs and T75Bs. We have seen these families traveling together quite a bit over the last week, so it was exciting to see them together once again. The two families were slowly traveling East around Henry Island and into Spieden Channel, and it was great to see the whole spectrum of sizes from the sprouting male T65B1 Birdsall (14 years old), the two full grown moms (32 year old T65B Chunk and 31 year old T75B Pebbles), and the youngest T65B3 Rook (2 years old). These families are very comparable as both moms are almost the same exact age and their calves are all similarly spread, so it was really fun seeing them hang out together similar to how humans choose who they socialize with. We watched all eight of them travel slowly together, with one surprise tail lob from one of them, before it was time for us to begin traveling back towards Friday Harbor. It is always really special to get to spend so much time with the whales and observe their behaviors, so we left the scene feeling very lucky with our sightings.
We stopped to view a group of harbor seals near Spieden Island on the way home, which was a great way to put into context how our Bigg’s Killer Whales are able to thrive in this ecosystem. The seals were resting on a small, rocky island, and we wondered if our whale families might eventually head this way to grab a snack. We ended our trip cruising by Spieden Island and back down San Juan Channel, getting lots of time to look at our whale photo ID book and discuss lots of great questions about these killer whales and our amazing ecosystem of the Salish Sea.