Lauren | M/V Osprey | August 23rd, 2024 | 12:30pm
Our 12:30 Classic Tour departed Friday Harbor with the hopes of catching up with some old friends. We had heard reports that the T018’s might be in the area. The T018’s are a fan favorite Bigg’s Killer Whale family in this region, most notably because of T019B/Galiano. Galiano is a 29-year-old male killer whale, and he has one of the largest dorsal fins in the population. When male killer whales are fully grown, their dorsal fins are on average a whopping 6 feet tall. What makes Galiano so special is not only how wide his dorsal is, but the fact it curves over at the top, allowing us captains and naturalists to easily identify him on the spot.
We hadn’t seen Galiano in months, so the crew was proper excited leaving the dock! We were stoked not just because we might see the T018’s, but because they were thought to be traveling with members of other Bigg’s families as well. We took a right out of Friday Harbor and headed into San Juan Channel. We stopped at Goose Island to look at some harbor seals and double-crested cormorant nests. After getting looks at Goose Island and Cattle Point Lighthouse we continued into the Strait of June De Fuca and then up into the Haro Strait. We started to see dorsal fins in the distance and slowed the vessel down. The first three whales I got a glimpse of were T019B/Galiano, T037A2/Inky and T037A4/Crinkle. We hung out with members of the T018’s and T037A’s for most of our trip. These whales were all spread out traveling west towards Vancouver Island. We noticed that we hadn’t seen Galiano surface for a while but had to pull off to head back to the dock. As we slowly started to pull off scene, we noticed Galiano surfacing a few hundred yards off our stern. He was swimming with another large male. Before we knew it that unidentified large male breached right out of the water! Fellow Naturalist Maxx was able to get a photo and identify the male as T049A1/Noah. Crazy enough, Noah is also considered to be one of the largest whales in the population! How cool is that?
What a way to end an epic day on the water.
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