Lauren Tschirhart | July 13th, 2026 | M/V Osprey | 1:30 pm
Today’s tour was filled with tons of spectacular sightings. We got to observe three different orcas and our tour ended with an unexpected humpback whale sighting. Who doesn’t love surprise whales? The M/V Osprey departed Friday Harbor and headed north in San Juan Channel. Our first wildlife sighting was of several harbor porpoise surfacing to the port side of our vessel. These porpoise surfaced several times, giving most of our guests the opportunity to see them. We often call these porpoise our bonus cetaceans for guests who are really looking, that’s because they often surface in unpredictable patterns. It takes a keen eye to be able to spot them. Next we made our way into Spieden Channel and then continued further north into the Haro Strait.
Today’s whale report led us up into Canada. We were following up on some intel that there were three orcas spotted near Sidney Channel. After making our way into British Columbia, we started seeing dorsal fins in the distance. We always say our first looks are never going to be our best, as we have county, state and federal regulations to follow. The best practice when watching whales is to slowly approach them. That way we can respect the whales underwater acoustics, while also paying attention to where and how they are moving. Today was one of those days where our first looks did in fact end up being our best. After going down on a long dive these whales popped up on the port side of our vessel, about 200 yards away. We got incredible looks at T046B3/ Sedna, her calf T046B3A/ Munroe and her sister T046B6/ Sol as they surfaced in a tight group. We hung out with these whales as they continued swimming northwest towards Saltspring Island.
We left this group of three and started to make our way back towards Friday Harbor. On our way back we spotted a humpback whale near Spieden Island. I was able to get a nice photo of the bottom of the whale's tail fluke, and identified this whale as BCY0946/ Slits. All and all, we saw three different cetacean species while out on the water, which means it was a seriously successful whale watch!
Want more information about the Pacific Whale Watch Association? See https://www.pacificwhalewatchassociation.com/
Want to see more photos from our trips? Visit our SmugMug page at: https://sanjuansafaris.smugmug.com/