Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | July 6th, 2025 | 10:00 AM
Our morning adventure set out with a few rumors of whale sightings towards the further parts of our range, but no boats were with any yet. As one of the first boats on the water, we began our search towards the north and cruised through President’s Channel along Waldron Island. We found lots of harbor seals on many of the small islands, stopping at Skipjack to get a closer look at them. There were so many in all different color variations moving around the water and on the shoreline, along with many seabirds transiting through the area. These were all great signs of the productivity of our waters, and as we pulled away from Skipjack to continue north, we noticed a number of harbor porpoises in the water around us. We got great looks at these small “bonus cetaceans” as they popped up along the surface, before they all disappeared again. We then picked up speed again, traveling into Canada around East Point and across the Strait of Georgia.
After a while, we neared Point Roberts and another boat in the area alerted us that they had spotted some whales in the area. We slowed down and began searching, and soon spotted a dorsal fin and exhalation in the distance. We quickly got on scene, and realized there were two humpback whales at the surface! As we got a closer look, we could see that these were both adults, which is more unusual since humpbacks are solitary animals. While we got some closer looks, we got another surprise when we realized there were actually three traveling together! This trio was taking some longer dives, but spending lots of time breathing at the surface in between. We got incredible looks at these whales when they surfaced closer to our boat after one particularly long dive, and we were amazed as we listened to their powerful exhalations and watched them swim ahead of us. After one last beautiful fluking dive from the three of them, we had to slowly begin traveling south back to the US. We took a different route home through a smaller pass and then along Saturna Island. This beautiful cruise was the perfect way to end our fantastic morning on the water, still soaking in the beauty of the humpbacks we got to spend time with.