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 to admire that quintessential banana pose and the wide variety of coats and colors.
We moved off swiftly and up around East point and along Canada’s Saturna Island coastline. My whaley senses were tingling: There were whales near by. Sure enough, the T065Bs rose out of the water off our port. We slowed to five knots, paralleling them as they gracefully broke the surface of the water.
I’m obsessed with this family of three. The last time I saw them they were actively taking down a 2,000lb steller sea lion! Today they traveled closely together, rolling overtop one another, and onto their backs. At one point T065B1 even spyhopped!
We traveled with them for 20 minutes or so before we crossed paths with the T036As as they traveled south! Considering how closely they passed each other I completely expected to see some sort of interaction between the families but as far as I could tell there was no physical interaction at all. Maybe they greeted one another below the surface and we just couldn’t see. Perhaps they did one of those awkward casual wave hello but don’t linger and keep moving because we don’t know each other all that well kind of greetings. We just don’t know but it’s still fun to guess.
We then swapped families, now taking a little bit of time to chill with the family of six whales, the T036As. This family has a little nugget calf, T036A1A, who is assumed to be only three-four weeks old! I melt.
Soon thereafter we continued off now completely overwhalemed with killer whales and newborn calves, heading back to Friday Harbor! Thanks for joining me out there y’all!