Olivia Ellman | M/V Osprey | August 29th, 2024 | 12:30pm
We left the dock in Friday Harbor with high spirits and great energy for the day ahead of us! Our search led us to the north along San Juan Island, and after not too long we found ourselves nearing a report of Bigg’s Killer Whales! We approached the eastern side of Spieden Island and quickly saw a group of five whales coming right towards us! We got amazing looks at this family as they swam right by our boat multiple times, and we easily recognized the familiar dorsals of the T049As. The group stayed in this area for quite some time, changing directions and eventually traveling more south. We followed this group back towards the eastern side of San Juan Island, especially excited to see the adorable two year old T049A6 known as Charlie II. Before we knew it our time watching this family was coming to an end, so we enjoyed some last looks as they continued moving south before we continued our search to the north.
Our good spirits continued to pay off as we approached Waldron Island to the northeast, because we soon found ourselves once again in the presence of another whale! This turned out to be a humpback whale, making this trip a double whale day! We slowly made our way into the area and got some closer looks at this individual, immediately seeing some of the differences between this whale and the killer whales we had just seen. After seeing a beautiful fluking dive, we were able to use photo ID to identify this as a humpback named Two Spot! We got to spend a good amount of time watching Two Spot slowly travel south, and talked a lot about humpbacks in the area and the different feeding techniques they use as baleen whales versus toothed whales. Eventually we had to say goodbye to Two Spot and begin traveling back towards Friday Harbor, but this was definitely a day to remember!
Check out our SmugMug to see photos of theT049As and Two Spot from today’s trip at https://sanjuansafaris.smugmug.com/.