Maxx K. | M/V Kestrel | 05/21/2022 | 2:00pm
Today was pretty perfect! The sun was out, the sea was glass and guests were stoked. We swiftly left Friday Harbor and rounded up north through the San Juan Channel where we then stopped at Flattop Island. We sat there spinning for several minutes in the upwelling, admiring the island that poked itself out of the water.
Suddenly a blow! A Humpback whale appeared off our bow surfacing every few minutes to take a deep, fresh breath before diving for several minutes again. Thanks to the expert quality whale calls from some of our guests, the whale appeared again, right off our port side! This whale was huge! Mind you, we were only seeing maybe a third of the whale at a time, yet each segment of visible whale must’ve been at least 12 feet long. It rounded itself along the southern side of Flattop, surfacing for two to three fresh breaths before diving back down into the upwelling below, likely lunge feeding for small schooling fish or krill.
We carried on, up through President’s pass and over to rumors of some other cool black and white cetaceans. There were several whale watching boats on the horizon when we arrived but after several minutes most of the boats had moved away and we were given an opportunity to chill with the T034 Bigg’s Killer Whales. These three animals zig-zagged through the upwelling, eventually crossing our bow and over to Parker Reef where they began their hunt.
A pair of Harbor Seals plopped into the water as the massive black dorsal fins passed by. Suddenly all three whales reunited, joined by another larger individual where they then began rolling over one another and blowing bubbles. While we couldn’t see what was happening super clearly, I imagine these animals were passing a Harbor Seal snack back and forth under the water. The emergence of gulls overhead supported this theory: perhaps they were scavenging scraps of seal that floated back up to the surface.
We stayed with them a little while longer as another couple of whales were picked up parallel from us along the Orcas coastline. These were members of the T037s, which were assumed to be direct descendants of T034. We were witnessing a family reunion!
We sat alongside the families for just a little while longer before eventually turning back to Friday Harbor, taking a bit of time to zoom through the rocky island fingers of Sucia Island. We got back to Friday Harbor soon after. What a gorgeous day out there. I hope y’all had fun with out there! I certainly did, I’m still buzzing!