Olivia Ellman | M/V Sea Lion | September 13th, 2024 | 12:30 pm
Our afternoon trip left Friday Harbor in a bit of overcast weather, but still determined to find some whales in the region. The nearest reports we had as we were leaving were close to Victoria, BC so we began by heading south down San Juan Channel. We made a stop in Cattle Pass to look at a group of harbor seals hauled out on Goose Island as well as the many seabirds in the area. This was a great starting point to learn about our productive waters and understand some of the wildlife that live here. We continued on around Cattle Point Lighthouse and followed the Haro Strait in between Vancouver Island and San Juan Island, even getting to see Lime Kiln Lighthouse in the distance. The whales we had been on the trail of had moved more north at this point, so we continued traveling toward Sidney.
As we neared Sidney and James Island, we began seeing a few other boats ahead of us and soon saw a number of blows and dorsal fins of Bigg’s Killer Whales in the distance! Despite the rain beginning to pick up, we were very excited to be approaching this family of five and braved the weather to get some good looks at them. This group was determined to be the T109As, who are known to travel in this area so it was exciting to see them here traveling along the coast. The rain continued to pick up and soon it was time to start heading back, but right as we were waiting to get our last looks the whales surprised us by surfacing much closer than before! We enjoyed some beautiful looks as they surfaced close together and could even see their white false eye patches as they came up to the surface. After this great encounter we began our travels north back towards Friday Harbor to complete our rainy circumnavigation of San Juan Island.
Check out our SmugMug to see photos from our trips on M/V Osprey at https://sanjuansafaris.smugmug.com/.