An epic double species, double breach day of the T75B Biggs orcas and a humpback on 8/24 by Kurt Leipold
Aug 18
A lovely day on the water:, harbor seals, and porpoises extremely close to whales, and saving the Salish Sea one abandoned bucket at a time. We started our cruise at Viti Rocks taking a peak at who was home. Lots of harbor seals hauled out, glaucous winged gulls and double crested cormorants. We love to see these critters utilizing their dedicated wildlife refuge.
We cruised south side of Sinclair giving Bellingham channel a good scan and cruised by the Cone Islands towards Peavine Pass. Cpt Cassidy spotted a bucket adrift, so we went and grabbed it. Our good luck karma for the litter retrieval came fast, because orca whales were heading our way. We got to spend a good chunk of our afternoon with the T100’s, specifically T100, Hutchins, T100C, Laurel, and T100F, Estrella. This pod definitely took down a harbor porpoise as they were heading into the mouth of Eastsound of Orcas island. We saw great splashing, a spy hop and some very fast and intentional direction changes.
After their meal, they cruised north into the sound. This is a special place to see whales, and not the most common. After we departed this beautiful pod, we went back towards home through Obstruction Pass, stopping at Peapod Rocks. Lots of seals and gulls were hanging out, as well as four turkey vultures on North Peapod. Such cool birds, though you definitely want to keep your distance, as they can projectile vomit up to 12ft if spooked. A splendid day of wildlife and great passengers on the boat.
Aug 19th
Today we went south of Eliza to Eliza Rock. We saw harbor seals, oystercatchers, and cormorants hanging out. Then we watched the legendary T18s in Thatcher Pass. They went between the spit and Frost Island, in water only about 20 feet deep. There were people on shore, giving us amazing size comparisons especially between the two males and the people.
They split up and we got some close looks at Spouter. He has a thinner fin than his brother and a bit pointier. Galiano has a thicker fin with a lean to the left. Mom is very small compared to these males. After our encounter we took Obstruction pass over to Peapod Rocks where we saw an eagle! Overall a wonderful day.
Aug 20
What a glorious day on the water. Nearly no wind, beautiful conditions and a friendly humpback whale near Iceberg Point. We made an intentional B-line to where this whale had been spotted earlier in the morning, as no other boats had been with them for hours. The cruise down Rosario Strait was magnificent. Conditions in the strait of Juan de Fuca are not always as pleasant as they were today so it was a treat to get down south in calm conditions.
We got to hang out with a fluking, circling, feeding humpback whale known as BCZ0345 – Victory. She was first spotted back in 2015, she is at least 10 years old, but we don’t know where she migrates to as her only sightings have been in the Salish Sea.
A passenger was able to get a great ID photo which helped in figuring out this particular individual. She was making big circles around Iceberg Point into the strait, which was fun to track her direction changes. Passengers were stoked to be the first to spot her when she popped back up from her deeper dives.
Aug 21
I have been waiting for this day all season!!! We got to spend time with the T18’s including Nootka (T19), Galiano (19B) and Spouter (19C). We cruised down south into the Strait of Juan de Fuca hopeful this pod would put on the brakes from traveling south and they sure did. We got to spend time with them near Smith and Minor Islands, a spot we usually don’t get down to on a whale watch.
Getting on scene we encountered some splashing behavior indicating they may have taken down some prey. The T18’s are a well recognized pod within the Salish sea. Galiano’s massively wide dorsal fin is easy to recognize and is so large it’s started to lean to the left. We got great looks at Galiano and Nootka today. We cruised west with them for a while until we peeled off wishing them great success with the rest of their day. Traveling back north we looked around Castle Island on the south side of Lopez, made a pit stop at bird rocks seeing a few harbor seals, gulls and cormorants and headed back home through Bellingham Channel.
Aug 22nd
We had an amazing double species day today! Both orcas and a humpback were spotted early this morning in a close proximity, allowing us to plan our day for time with each species. This is not common, so the whole crew were excited for the day. Due to the potential for lots of time with whales, we skipped all of our normal stops for other wildlife, and headed through the center of the islands and get lunch going.
We turned south to head out towards the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but made a quick stop at Whale Rocks to watch some stellar sea lions fighting for dominance along the shallows. The noise from these pinnipeds was very loud today, as there was lots of posturing and splashing in the water from several pairs. This kind of activity is completely normal for those male Stellar sea lions as they practice for adulthood and finding mates.
Our arrival on scene with the T37As had the orcas travelling our direction. The orcas were very busy travelling, and cruising at a decent pace heading towards the east, so we got a lot of surface time with the family of three. We got to enjoy them surfacing with the beautiful backdrop of San Juan Island and Mt Baker. After around an hour with the orcas, we ended up in the area that a humpback was busy circling on eating dives, so we left the orcas behind and switched gears to watching the humpback whale.
We got a few great deep dive looks at the whale’s tail, ID as Victory. This particular humpback is a female that has brought a calf back to the Salish Sea with her, but it is unknown where her favored breeding grounds are located. We finished our trip coming back up Bellingham Channel, with a quick pitstop at Eliza Island to view some harbor seals lounging on Eliza Rocks.
Aug 23rd
This morning was a lucky day, with early reports of orcas close to Bellingham. We skipped all our morning stops to be able to go watch the T65Bs before lunch. On the west side of Cypress, this family was busy taking some longer down times tucked into the shoreline, heading south towards Strawberry Island. We got a few great profile looks of the family coming up together, and the lighting was perfect to see the mist vapor from the exhalations.
We watched them for a shorter amount of time than usual, since we knew we’d be able to see them again on our way home, and went in search of other wildlife during lunch. Heading south out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, we stopped at Bird and Castle Rocks to look at several species of our marine birds, and to be on the lookout for baleen whales. We unfortunately didn’t spot any spouts in some of our favorite areas to look, so we headed back toward the T65Bs.
On our journey back up Bellingham channel, we stumbled upon T65A5, Indy! He’s a much beloved whale in the Salish Sea, a very young and independent male who roams the seas on his own getting into weird adventures, and today was no exception. He was busy doing very fast circles around one of the Cone Islands off of Cypress, circumnavigating it several times at over 10 knots! We stopped to watch him make his loops before he suddenly disappeared on us.
We continued back towards the T65Bs that had slowly journeyed north, but were only about one mile away from Indy. We were able to watch them make a close pass, with a lovely view of Mount Baker, before Indy popped right up ahead of them! He was consistently doing zigs and zags and travelling pretty quickly. It was such a lovely, hot day on the water, and unique that we saw orcas at three different locations.
Aug 24th
Today was a one of a kind whale show day! Early this morning, as we rounded Carter Point on Lummi Island, Naturalist Kara spotted a humpback whale! Two tall spouts were in the perfect lighting to allow us the chance to watch our first whale of the day. The humpback was busy travelling and had some pretty low profile surfaces, so as lunch time approached, we left this whale behind to see what else we could find.
Very shortly into our continued search, Cpt Matt on our Sucia trip found killer whales and was able to keep track of them for us to come join him outside of Echo Bay on Sucia Island. This group was identified as the T75Bs. It took the whale watchers collaborating to identify these whales today, because the pod had a brand new calf, most likely born between June and August this year.
This was really exciting, because the pod seemed to be taking the day very easy, with slow travel and showing the baby some new tricks. We saw mom and older sister tail lob in sync, and then the little baby copied them! It was adorable behaviour, as the calf was zipping around all of the adults. We even saw one of the older whales breach! It was a full twist out of the water, with a huge splash landing. It was quite the joyful group of orcas today.
We spent our hour with the orcas, but the original humpback was still close by and we had plenty of time left in our trip, so we made our way back to watch our first whale friend just off Clark and Barnes Islands. As we came on scene, the humpback breached! I was flabbergasted; it’s such a rare occurrence for us to see two species of whale, and even more so to see them both so playful and active. The humpback was breaching and pectoral slapping for about 10 minutes and then continued on its journey north. It was a spectacular day, and my cheeks still hurt from smiling so much.
