Olivia | M/V Kestrel | August 7th, 2020 | 14:00

The Hail Mary works again! Captain Brian and I decided to take a chance and head far south on our afternoon adventure trip in an attempt to see Killer Whales between Whidbey and Camano Islands. This was a long shot as there was no coverage on the whales and we would have to find them ourselves, in addition to going far and pushing our time limits with the four-hour trip. We decided it was worth it to give it our all for our passengers...

Olivia | September 28th, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | 11:00am

Sadly, today was my last Kestrel trip of the season with Captain Gabe and we decided early on that it was going to be epic. Being one of the first boats out on the water, we often must travel into areas where there haven’t been other boats in order to find potential whale sightings. We heard of a Humpback Whale near Battleship Island north of Roche Harbor, but decided to go scope out waters elsewhere due to the amount of boats...

Olivia | September 8th, 2019 | M/V Sea Lion | 12:00pm

What a fun day Captain Sarah and I had with all our passengers on M/V Sea Lion! We started off the trip by heading north where we immediately began seeing Harbor Porpoises rounding San Juan Island through Spieden Channel. After taking a quick stop at Spieden Island to see Bald Eagles, Harbor Seals, and heaps of Mouflon Sheep, we continued towards Stuart Island where we ran into our solo Bigg’s Killer Whale, T49A3! This goofy...

(April 27, 2017) Our guests today were treated to an encounter with “Big Mama,” a school bus-sized member of the baleen whale family.  Just a few decades ago, humpback whales such as Big Mama were on track to becoming locally extinct in the northeast Pacific.  After a moratorium was placed on commercial whaling, several whale species began to recover their populations.  Today there are estimated to be about 20,000 humpbacks in this part of the world.

In some parts of the world...

While May through September tends to be peak season for spotting killer whales, also known as orcas, here in the San Juan Islands, we are in the midst of a second peak in whale sightings right now. From about September into November we have our peak sightings of humpback whales. These past weeks have been just spectacular for spotting these beautiful creatures.

A Background on the Mighty Humpback

Humpback whales are regarded to be the fourth or fifth largest whales in the world...

What's up, humpbacks! On our whale watch on M/V Seahawk today, we had a chance to encounter these massive baleen whales out in the Rosario Straight - a real treat, considering we don't always get the chance to pass by Orcas and Shaw Island on our tours. These beautiful islands greeted us with views of rocky bluffs dotted with wildflowers, pine trees, and the ever graceful medrona trees. The sun sparkled brightly overhead, hinting of exciting things to come. Not a single breeze waved...