Maxx K. | M/V Kestrel | 06/29/2022 | 10:00am

    Forgive me, but I’m gonna geek out here during this blog. Bigg’s Killer Whales are obviously fascinating for a myriad of reasons but I’m never more impressed than when I get lucky enough to see a T-Party of whales. A T-Party is essentially an informal nickname given to the circumstances when several families of Transient whales (related or not) come together for whatever purpose; feeding, socialization, reproducing, family cookouts...

Maxx K. | M/V Kestrel | 06/27/2022 | 2:00pm

    It’s was a bomby summers day. Kestrel absolutely flew threw the San Juan Channel, cutting through the velvety water with ease. We raced up and around through Waldron Island, stopping briefly once to scope out Skipjack Island and dozens of Harbor seals that rested along its rocky shorelines. 

Harbor seals haul out onto rocks for a variety of reasons such as rest, thermoregulation, birthing and nursing. This gives us a great opportunity...

10:00 am

Today’s adventure tour started out as a shockingly hot morning on land. Our guests, and myself, were eager to zip around on the water and cool off. We departed from Friday Harbor scanning the exposed shorelines due to the low tides hoping to find some Harbor Seals. We came across a reef nearby Yellow Island with some curious Harbor Seals hauled out and a Bald Eagle watching from the reef marker. We made our way around the island and across San Juan Channel where we found a...

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...

Helena

MV Kestrel

6/24/2022

10am 

Another fabulously sunny day on MV Kestrel allowed for some crystal clear viewing of cetaceans, pinnipeds and shore birds here in the Salish Sea. We departed Friday Harbor and headed south towards the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Views of the Olympics off our bow and Mount Baker to our portside allowed for an unbelievable backdrop throughout our adventure today. First stop was Goose Rock where we viewed several double crested cormorants perched atop...

Maxx K. | M/V Kestrel | 06/21/2022 | 2:00pm

    One of my favorite things about working as a naturalist is trying to interpret what is going on in the head of a whale. They are assumed to be some of the smartest creatures on the planet: Killer whales in particular have the second largest brains in the animal kingdom AND the second largest brain to body ratio (another presumed indicator of intelligence). The inherit intelligence and personality of a killer whale, something we only get...

Maxx K. | M/V Kestrel | 06/21/2022 | 10:00am

    I love a morning tour, for a lot of reasons really, but also because there is a real sense of urgency and tension. Being a part of the PWWA is such a great tool, not only are we able to collect and share data about whale behavior but we’re also able to stay up to date on where they’re being located. Given that none of the whales seen out here are tagged, we're reliant on spotting them ourselves! 

    At 10:00 in the morning, it’s easy...

Maxx K. | 06/20/2022 | M/V Kestrel | 2:00pm

    It took next to no time for Kestrel to fly into the Juan de Fuca today. The sea was just choppy enough to spice up our travels a little bit as we raced off to meet Big Mama and her calf over Hein bank. Big Mama is probably the coolest Humpback whale that I’ve ever met. She’s a pioneer to start, being one of the first humpbacks observed here during the Humpback Comeback back in 1997. Since then she returns here year after year and has...

June 19th, 2022

Helena Wiatrowski

2pm Kestrel

What an afternoon the Kestrel crew had! Today the sun was on our side, allowing for great visibility of a variety of wildlife and flora along the rocky coastlines of the San Juans. We jetted north out of Friday Harbor past Boundary Pass and found a Bigg’s Killer Whale family pod, the T123’s, along the southernmost tip of South Pender Island. This family consists of four individuals:

• Sidney (T123; F; b.~1985)
• Stanley (T123A; M; b. 2000)...

Maxx K. | M/V Kestrel | 06/18/2022 | 2:00pm

    Today was so much fun. Not only did we have a full crew aboard Kestrel today (myself, Elle AND Captain Eric), we also managed to spend some time with my favorite family of Bigg’s Killer Whales, the T123s. Then we got a quick glimpse of a couple of Peregrine falcons, some wild South Pender Island mountain goats and the biggest eagles nest I’ve ever seen!

    The T123s traveled tightly together around the east side of Barnes and Clark...