Piper | Thursday, June 20, 2019 | M/V Kestrel | 11:00 AM
This morning when Captain Gabe and I arrived at the docks a ferry came into the marina here in Friday Harbor and reported seeing orcas just outside the town! While I got everyone fitted in exposure suits, he jumped on the boat and took it out to locate those orcas for us. Once he’d spotted them and we were ready to go, he brought Kestrel back and we all hopped on! We headed north into San Juan Channel to go check out this group of Bigg’s killer whales, which we identified as the T65As, a family of six mammal-eating orcas:
- T65A (Fingers), 33 years old
- T65A2 (Ooxjaa), 15
- T65A3 (Amira), 12
- T65A4 (Ellifrit), 8
- T65A5 (Elsie), 5
- T65A6 (unnamed), 1
We watched as they swam along the east side of San Juan Island, up towards Reuben Tarte Park before we peeled away and headed south towards Cattle Point! It was shortly after that we arrived at the southern tip of San Juan Island and got to see some Steller sea lions that have apparently decided they don’t want to go to Alaska for breeding just quite yet! There were also some harbor seals chilling on the other side of the rocks and it was an awesome opportunity to really see the difference in size between the two and how massive those Stellers really are!
We continued into the waters south of San Juan, where the Haro Strait and Strait of Juan de Fuca meet and we caught sight of a couple Minke whales feeding near some bait balls which were also attracting a lot of our summer sea birds such as rhinoceros auklets, a relative of the puffin!
After a few good looks at those Minke whales we headed north again, but this time on the western side of San Juan Island! Just above False Bay we came across another group of Bigg’s killer whales! This group was the T124As, a group of eight orcas! This group led us up San Juan to Lime Kiln Lighthouse where we broke away from them and continued north to circumnavigate San Juan Island! Along the coast of Henry Island we got to stop and check out an awesome bald eagle perched in the trees looking for his next meal! We made just one more stop along the way to pick up a 50th birthday mylar balloon floating in Spieden Channel. We always try to pick up litter when we see it, and balloons are our most commonly spotted floating pollution. Such a wonderful day on the water!