Lauren | M/V Sea Lion | April 2nd, 2025 | 12:30 pm
Friday Harbor was booming with life this Wednesday afternoon. The town was filled with families and friends on Spring Break! Spring Break is our awakening. It’s our first busy weekend of the year. A sign that sleepy San Juan winter is behind us, and that summer is on the horizon. Captain Eric and I loaded our passengers abord the M/V Sea Lion and cruised out of Friday Harbor. We were excited to find out that a fellow Pacific Whale Watch Association (PWWA) vessel had picked up some killer whales in Upright Channel. The killer whales that were found are part of the Costal Bigg’s Population, which is a group of marine mammal eating killer whales found predominately off the coast of Washington and British Columbia. With the help of photo-identification, these whales were determined to be part of the family group the T099’s. The T099’s are made up of a mom and her four offspring. The matriarch, T099/Bella was born in1984 and has 4 surviving offspring:
- T099B/ Holly 18 yo (Female)
- T099C/ Barakat 16 yo (Male)
- T099D/ Puck 10 yo (Male)
- T099E/ (Unnamed 2021 calf) (Female)
Her eldest living daughter, T099B/Holly, was not seen traveling with the group today. As we headed for the T099’s, we stopped to observe some hauled out harbor seals on Twin Rocks at the mouth of Eastsound on Orcas Island. We made our way to the very northwest point of Eastsound and started to see dorsal fins in the distance. The other captains on scene alerted us that the whales were in an active harbor seal hunt! By the time we arrived, the hunt was seemingly over, but we were lucky enough to witness the whales prey sharing. We watched as these four whales circled each other, sharing their meal. We watched as the birds took advantage of the kill, picking off the seal scraps left behind. We followed the whales as they swam close to the Orcas Island shoreline, leading us back out of the sound. We said goodbye to the T099’s and started making our way back to Friday Harbor. We made one last stop to see two bald eagles perched in a tree on the Shaw Island shoreline. What a magnificent day on the water!