Olivia Ellman | M/V Osprey | August 29th, 2024 | 12:30pm

We left the dock in Friday Harbor with high spirits and great energy for the day ahead of us! Our search led us to the north along San Juan Island, and after not too long we found ourselves nearing a report of Bigg’s Killer Whales! We approached the eastern side of Spieden Island and quickly saw a group of five whales coming right towards us! We got amazing looks at this family as they swam right by our boat multiple times, and we easily...

It was a classic PNW morning as we began our 10am tour out of Friday Harbor; skies were gray. A light sprinkle of rain drenched us as we tore north through the San Juan Channel. We didn’t have a heading at this point as we never really know where whales are going to pop up. As cliché as it sounds, whale watching really is like a box of chocolates out here- who knows who’s going to be around that day let alone where they’re gonna be! As we mention on each of our trips, we work closely within the...

Olivia | M/V Osprey | August 21st, 2024 | 12:30pm

Summer season out here in the San Juan Islands is considered peak season, bringing in the opportunity to see potentially two ecotypes of Killer Whales, Humpback Whales, Minke Whales, and Gray Whales. While statistics continually reflect on that, every day is a brand-new adventure on where or what type of whale it is we are going to see. Starting off August, we had a bit of a Killer Whale lull in the Salish Sea, where Pacific Whale Watch...

Olivia | San Juan Safaris | August 19th, 2024 

After a long hiatus while getting our NEW website up and running, our daily blogs are back! 

We will be documenting whale and wildlife sightings daily from all three of our vessels to provide a sneak peak of where we’ve been traveling and what wildlife has been visiting the Salish Sea- while hopefully teaching you something along the way. We will also be providing bonus material for extra education and conservation topics, and photos of course! 

Every...

7/21/22

MV Kestrel

2pm

Helena

We journeyed north up San Juan Channel following reports of wildlife in Boundary Pass. With the base of Mount Baker off our starboard side, the group was buzzing for the potential of what we might encounter!

Captain Michael slowed down first at the Cactus Islands through New Channel. This serene area east of Spieden Island was perfect for viewing some Harbor Seals and their newborn pups! There are nearly 40,000 individual harbor seals in the Salish...

Haleigh | M/V Osprey | June 25, 2022 | 5:30 pm

Summer is finally here! We’re experiencing our first string of warm, sunny days now that the end of June is nearing and the whales were here for it, too! For today’s Classic Wildlife and Whale Watching tour, sunset edition, we left the dock to see the sun glowing on the water in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We detoured through Castle Island and McArdle Bay, a pristine inlet of steep cliffs, towering trees, and calm seas on the south end...

Helena

6/24/22

Kestrel

2pm

We headed southeast through Lopez Sound and Thatcher Pass to Cypress Island, where we’d gotten word of a humpback surfacing nearly 200 yards from the south coast of the island. Humpbacks are baleen whales and they migrate to the Salish Sea each summer to their feeding grounds. Our highly productive waters bring a wide variety of small schooling fish, such as herring, mackerel and sand lance, that these humpbacks will eat up to 3,000 pounds of every day...

Kelly | M/V Kestrel | 5/30/22 | 2:00pm |
It was overcast and a bit foggy as we suited up in our exposure suits and prepared for our Adventure tour on the M/V Kestrel! This exciting tour operates on our smallest and fastest vessel in the fleet, a zodiac style ridged inflatable that allows us to zip around the islands and maximize our chance of wildlife sightings during this 3–4-hour excursion.
As we slowly puttered out of Friday Harbor, almost instantly we were greeted by a perched...

Olivia | M/V Sea Lion | May 23rd, 2022 | 12:30pm

The Pacific Northwest decided to pull one of her most cliché moves by raining on a day that didn’t call for it; but off we went with happy faces ready for whatever the day brought. Heading north, we stopped at Flattop Island admiring heaps of Pigeon Guillemots with their red feet bold against the green water. Nearby we found several Harbor Seals swimming along the basalt rock as well as an adult Bald Eagle stoically looking across the...

Maxx K. | M/V Sea Lion | 04/30/2022 | 12:30pm

    Friday harbor was spooky at 12:30- it softly rained throughout the morning and was gray everywhere you looked. It was a pretty cliche Washington morning but we weren’t disheartened- it can be so much easier to spot whales without the glare of the sun bouncing off the water. A jet black dorsal fin stands out so much sharper against a white gray foggy sky too- haha perhaps this is me trying my best to make lemonade from lemons but hey! ...