Top Center: Orca Breach from the T-Party on 5/30/25 by Karen Randolph
Others: A T-Party meet up of T046Bs, T123s, T124A2s on 5/30/25 Biggs pods near Sucia Island lined up with Mt Baker.
Stanley with his massive dorsel fin. Steller sea lions cuddling and barking on a navigation marker. By Lincoln Humphry
May 30th
Lots of hauled out harbor seals with different color patterns at our classic start point at Viti Rocks.
Sea lions jumping onto the navigation marker nearby, with one real big guy weighing down one side. 5 total. One was rubbing its head on another sea lion it was laying against, so cute!
Without a reliable report yet, we headed for the middle route through islands, going through the beautiful Peavine and Pole Passes south of Orcas. As we made it through Pole Pass we heard a report of 12 whales on the north side of Orcas, and away we went to the north.
As we arrived we got situated to get an excellent line up of an orca pod under Mt Baker, giving us that epic PNW shot. As we and other boats were counting what we saw, we realized we had ended up graced with a T-Party of 15 whales! A couple of them passed right by us, forcing us to go idle for a bit (We have no problem with that!)
We saw them pop back up near shore, and started showing lots of tail lobs and hand standing, upside down maneuvers, cartwheeling.. real acrobatic whales! Then one whale made THREE consecutive breaches! Stanley was there with his incredible tall dorsal.
They were right off of Sucia Island when they were most active, then we watched them slowly head head past Matia Island with Baker in the distance, as we had to depart.
On our way home, on the marker north of Lummi, we saw a California sea lion head, bobbing trying to decide if they were interested in sunbathing. It was quite the epic day.
Members of T046Bs, T123s, T124A2s Biggs pods.
May 31st
There was a Steller sea lion on Viti Rocks! This is the first time I’ve seen one there in my 4 years working here (Naturalist Emily). We see seals often, but never a Stellar. Went south down Bellingham channel and saw so many feeding harbor porpoise. They were riding the currents.
We caught up with three humpbacks. They were having a blast! So many tail flukes, some waving pectoral fins, upsides down rolls, and lots of peduncle (tail) throws! It was spectacular.
We heard some trumpeting as well from the humpbacks, which we don’t hear every day.
It’s also quite rare to see three of them together in our region, they are usually pretty solitary.
Three HB: Poptart and Achilles, one unidentified.
June 1st
Stopped and visited sea lions first thing, nice typical first stop. There were a couple of them making big vocalizations. Apparently there was also a sea lion on one of our docks in the morning!
Caught up with the T85s in Rosario Strait, there were 4 of them. Throughout the trip they were doing some surface behaviors like showing pectoral fins/ a little tail fluke here and there. Then all of a sudden a big bull breached! It was amazing to witness seeing such a big whale come out of the water, then a smaller one did a couple consecutive breaches too!
We think this is because there was another group in the area, the T137s. They swam parallel with each other for a bit but never officially met up with one another. It was such another magnificent day!
We stopped at Eliza rocks on the way back to Bellingham bay and saw so so many hauled out harbor seals.
T85 Biggs Pod
