The T109A’s with an active calf off of Dungeness Spit and the Olympics on 7/29/25 by Lincoln Humphry
July 28th
Today there were early reports of whales on the west side of San Juan Island so we quickly made our way through the middle. We traveled through Peavine pass, and saw some harbor seals west of Crane Island. From there we took Spieden Channel and headed south in Haro Strait. We caught up with the T65Bs near D’Arcy Island at the kelp reefs. It was a beautiful area, but we had to be unbelievably careful close to those rocks! When we got on scene the whales were surfacing in shallow water close to the rocks, but then decided to go South. They were giving us fantastic looks and I was so grateful to see them! We spent quite some time with them before we had to eventually break off and head south and back east.
On our way home, Captain Michael found us a minke whale south of Salmon Bank. There were actually two of them! They were being very cooperative and were showing off their sickle shaped dorsal fin. It’s always fun seeing toothed whales and baleen whales in one day, comparing and contrasting them. From there we went into Castle Rock Pass and saw Marbled Murrelets, an endangered bird that nests in old growth. A nice way to wrap up our day with lots of species, several we see rarely.
July 29th
We were so lucky to show up today with early reports from Port Angeles area boats that Bigg’s orca whales were slowly traveling the shoreline. This would normally be out of reach for us, but with good conditions, we would have just enough time to get 30 minutes with them. We did some good scanning of Rosario Strait, just in case there were closer wildlife viewing opportunities, before heading over to the Cone Islands off of Cypress Island. We needed to stall as there was a new northern report, but we decided to continue south. At Cone we got a look at pigeon guillemots diving off the cliffs and a pair of bald eagles surveying the water from the middle Cone.
The water was flat and calm today on our journey south, with some support from an ebb tide helping us get our way towards Dungeness quickly. There were many large groups of marine birds all throughout Bellingham Channel, eating forage fish, with a few sporadic moments of harbor porpoise cruising by. Our long journey south, finally brought us on scene with the T109As, Bigg’s orca whales just off Dungeness Spit! It was a lovely, and new background to be watching these whales, as we could see people on the beach enjoying the whales too.
The T109As spent a lot of time at the surface, resting and barely travelling over 1 knot. But the baby of this group was another story! T109A8, a year old calf was feeling spunky and playful, continually porpoising out of the water, tossing some tail lobs and swimming on their back. The size difference of this younger sibling was quite evident, from surfacing and playing around their brother, T109A4 Garret, who has a dorsal fin that has grown so much in the last few years. A unique day today.
July 31
A slightly smokey morning turned into a beautiful afternoon with blue skies, calm seas and humpback whales. We started our adventure off with three Stellers sea lions hanging out on the Sinclair buoy taking a little sun nap. So fun to see their massive flippers. They were all cuddled together so their heads were touching, giving us amazing looks at their vibrissae, the whiskers on their snouts. We continued north scanning the outer islands. We were hearing reports of a humpback heading towards the seclusion zone off of Pender island and that’s where we were heading already.
Hoping the whale would slow down just a bit so we could get some good looks before they entered the no-go zone, another humpback was spotted near the northwest side of Stuart Island. We changed our route towards that whale which turned out to be a mom and calf pair. Unfortunately, neither of them gave us any identifying fluke shots but some other PWWA boats were able to get an ID on them. We got to spend time with Jagger (BCX1815) and her calf. Jagger was first seen in BC waters in 2017 making her at least 8 years old, so this may be her first calf!
The babe gave us some great looks with more consistent surfacings, only staying under for about 5 minutes. Momma stayed down a bit longer. It was impressive to see the size difference of mom vs calf’s spout, moms towered over her calf’s reaching an impressive 20ft high. An absolutely magical encounter with these two! We cruised home stopping at Skipjack Island getting to see two mature bald eagles feasting on something and lots of harbor seals, including some pups. We kept pushing east heading down Hales passage to get us back to the dock.
Aug 1st
As soon as we left the dock this morning we knew we had to head north. The south was very breezy and would have been uncomfortable for everyone involved! The North was still a bit windy, but much more doable. We went through Hale Passage where we saw a harbor seal swimming, the Lummi Island Ferry, and lots of marine birds floating and flying by. We scanned Alden bank for a long while, but decided to keep heading North, and good thing we did!
We got to spend an hour with a humpback, the largest cetacean in the area. And not just one, but two of them again! It was an amazing day with great looks. They were making very lazy tail flukes, but that made it so we could really check out their tail. I think they may have been resting. They were swimming very close to one another and were staying close to the surface, sometimes staying at the surface for 30 seconds.
It is unusual to see more than one humpback together here in the Salish Sea, as they are mostly solitary unless there is great food around or at their breeding grounds much further south. So it was interesting to see pairs of them two days in a row. Next we went south to Clements Reef north of Sucia, where we saw three Stellers and a whole lot of harbor seals. It’s always great to see them hauled out in the same area to get a look at the size difference between those two pinnipeds.
Aug 2nd
There were reports of three humpbacks off the west side of San Juan Island. We made our way through the islands and caught up with them. While there was a lot of fluking, these humpbacks were in travel mode, and really making their way along the island. We got a good example of size comparison and fluke comparison, when the main mom/calf pair fluked together! solid black tail for one, wing tipped white for the other. No IDs on these today, with a little bit of rolling for weather.
Aug 3rd
The T65As were making their way inland from the Strait of Juan de Fuca this morning, and had the option to turn south out of our range, or north towards Bellingham, and we lucked out that they chose to be cooperative! They headed our direction. And we’re glad they did as the pod was pretty fascinating today. This family was busy hunting for lunch, but did a lot of playing with their food, smacking a seal around and generally splashing, so we got to see a decent show.
