Olivia Ellman | M/V Sea Lion | October 4th, 2026 | 12:30 pm
What an unforgettable day on the M/V Sea Lion today! While the month has only just started, this trip is going to be hard to beat. When we departed Friday Harbor, we had some whale reports that were in the furthest areas of our range. We pointed north towards a humpback report, but decided to continue past it in the hopes of first catching up to a report of some killer whales heading south from the Gulf Islands. We journeyed past Stuart Island and crossed into Canada, continuing all the way past Pender and Moresby Islands until finally began to slow our speed. We had made it to a well known pair of Bigg’s Killer Whales, brothers T60D and E! I hadn’t seen these two in some time, and it’s always nice to see some familiar dorsals. The brothers were traveling south quite slowly, taking some longer dives with variable surface intervals. We enjoyed some beautiful looks at them side by side, even seeing one of them surface sideways at one point. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere, and in the calm waters it was incredible to have our engines off and hear their exhalations. After some time, it was time for us to start heading back further south and search for other whales and wildlife.
We departed the brothers, happy to have made it to some killer whales today, but little did we know our trip was far from over! A great part of traveling far is that we get to cover lots of water to keep searching. We were underway, nearing the border again near Morseby Island when a passenger alerted us that they thought they saw something in the distance. As soon as Levi and I turned to look, it was immediately apparent that there were more killer whales in our area! We alerted Captain Gabe, and slowed our vessel to see what was going on. As we scanned for the whales again, we noticed something else at the surface as well… The small dark body, with a black and white dorsal fin could only be one thing; Dall’s Porpoise! While we most often see harbor porpoise in our area, Dall’s occasionally come through particularly in the Fall and Spring. I have been waiting to see this species for 3 years here, and today was finally the day! We saw a couple of them surface before disappearing, and then we got back to searching for the orcas again. Once we saw them, we got to work on identifying who these whales were, knowing this was another group of Bigg’s. With our camera, we looked for unique notches or scarring on individuals, as well as took note of how many whales were here and how many adults or younger whales were in the group. Noticing a tall sprouting male and many younger whales, we already had some guesses… After getting some photos to verify, we could determine it was the T49As! This was such a special find as this family is one of my favorites to see, and they hadn’t been sighted in the area for a couple weeks. We got some incredible looks at this family as they milled around the area.
After they continued swimming further west, we had to continue making our way south. We went past Turn Point and followed the south side of Stuart, heading towards the Cactus Islands. We had just enough time to stop to search for our final whale of the day… The humpback that we had first heard of this morning. Lucky for us, this whale was still feeding in the area and we quickly spotted an exhalation! We stayed to view two fluking dives from this juvenile, the perfect way to top off our exciting trip! This will definitely remain one of my favorite days of the season, not only getting to finally check off a new species on my list, but also getting to see so many different whales in our beautiful Salish Sea (including some of my all time favorites!).
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/