Lauren | M/V Sea Lion | September 14th, 2024 | 12:30 pm

Our Sunday trip aboard the M/V Sea Lion took us about as far as we can go during a 3-to-4-hour whale watching tour out of Friday Harbor. The only whales we knew of were slowly exiting the Puget Sound, heading north-west out of Admiralty Inlet. Captain Gabe and I hoped for the best and headed south in San Juan Channel. We stopped at Goose Island to look at some Double-Crested Cormorant nests and some hauled our harbor seals. We cruised...

Lauren | M/V Kestrel | September 13th, 2024 | 2:00 pm

The M/V Kestrel is our adventure boat, and our 2:00 pm Saturday trip was nothing short of an adventure. Nothing like celebrating the tail end of our summer whale watch tours with a torrential downpour! 

We left the dock, cruised out of Friday Harbor and headed north in San Juan Channel. Our first stop was to Sentinel Rock, a predominate harbor seal haul out site near Spieden Island. Harbor seals are super important to our ecosystem as they...

Maxx | M/V Kestrel | September 8th 2024 | 2:00pm

The T018s and T049s are the most frequent of flyers this summer, hands down. 

T019 “Nootkah” is a mother assumed to be born sometime before 1965. She travels with her sons, 29 year old T019B “Galiano” and T019C “Spouter,” born in 2001. 

They traveled with the T049As, led by mom “Nan” and accompanied by four of her youngest kids T049A3 “Nat,” A4 “Neptune,” A5 “Nebula,” and A6, little “Charlie II.”

The took long dives initially, surfacing in unison for...

Maxx | M/V Sea Lion | September 7th 2024 | 12:30pm

Serendipitous moments like we saw on today’s tour are always a bit confounding to me as I cruise around the San Juans. Yesterday a big group of Bigg’s Killer Whales passed through the San Juan Channel, down around Jones Island and into Orca’s Islands Deer Harbor. They milled there and carried on again, up around Orcas Island and through Presidents Pass. 

Today’s tour was remarkably similar- It didn’t take long for Sea Lion to leave Friday Harbor...

Kelly | M/V Kestrel | August 29th 2024 | 2pm | 

I knew were likely to see two different whale groups when we left the harbor on this beautiful Friday afternoon...but I not expect that we were going to see 4 different groups, totaling 13 INDIVIDUAL whales! The stars were certainly aligned. 

The first whales we encountered were of the baleen variety, humpback whales to be precise. Typically, our humpbacks are solitary as they make their way through the Salish sea along their migration route. Not...

Olivia | M/V Kestrel | August 23rd, 2024 | 10:00 am 

Today's 10am trip really put the adventure in Adventure Whale Watch as we departed Friday Harbor in a mix of rain and fog! We began our search for wildlife by heading north along San Juan Island, turning southwest to explore Mosquito Pass and eventually the west side of the island. Despite the rain and cold conditions, we enjoyed the views of Lime Kiln Light House and pushed on towards Salmon and Hein Banks. While these areas did bring flat...

Kelly | M/V Osprey | 8/9/22 | 12:30pm

There was a pleasant cool breeze in the air as we left Friday Harbor on this tuesday afternoon. It was a wonderful departure from the hot weather we’ve been experiencing. We had just received a report of Biggs Killer whales in the south and were excited to travel inter-island to get to their reported location. As we weaved through islands on our journey south, a small group of harbor porpoise surfaced quickly as we passed by the mouth of...

July 22nd, 2022

Abby Dahl

2pm M/V Kestrel

Captain Eric and I started our tour with plumose anemones and sea slugs; critters that call the underside of the docks and pilings their home. It’s one of my favorite things to do with guests, to work our way up the trophic scale by starting with the tiniest, most beautiful organisms first. If you can start with the smallest organisms on a tour, you create a keen eye onboard and can bring back the childhood sense of wonder to always seek out...

July 21st, 2022

Abby Dahl

2pm M/V Sea Lion

Captain Erick and I chugged out of a busy Roche Harbor, with our sights set on a humpback whale just north of Stuart Island on the Canadian border. We cruised by some thermoregulating harbor seals and their newborn pups, with the sun glistening off the calm waters of Spieden Channel. When we got to the humpback whale identified as the female “Fallen Knight,” we had some great looks and some beautiful tail flukes.

Upon leaving the scene and...

Maxx K. | M/V Kestrel | 07/18/2022 | 2:00pm

    I had a blast on today's tour! Kestrel raced out of Friday Harbor towards the north, stopping first to admire a bald eagle that sat looming over the San Juan Channel. We ended up seeing at least eleven eagles during the duration of our tour today and I’m confident we must’ve missed at least a handful more during our journey. The Salish Sea has the second largest breeding population of bald eagles outside of southeast Alaska so keep your...