A sail with orcas T65A's and T137's to Turn Pt

August 13, 2020 – As we left the harbor we were keeping track of a pod of orcas known as the T18’s coming down Georgia Strait in Canada so we plotted a course to the north for our adventure. A bald eagle was perched on the Shirt Tail Reef marker while harbor seals were sprawled out resting on the rocks at Low Island.

Another report of a different group of orcas found off the southwest side of San Juan Island near False Bay came over the radio. It was reported as the T65A’s (minus T65A2) with T137 and youngest offspring T137D (T137’s offspring T137A and T137B had dispersed with T65A2 four days earlier – we saw these three orcas yesterday at the border north of Turn Pt). These two families of orcas had spent the last couple of weeks in Puget Sound and were near Seattle the day before. It’s not uncommon for orcas to travel 50-100 miles in a day. Being that these orcas were northbound along the coast of San Juan we decided to change course and make haste to meet them at the top of the island. Our plan worked out perfectly and we began seeing the blows as they rounded Kellett Bluff on Henry Island.

The orcas were spread out in loose groups traveling north quickly on the flood current. After a long dive of several minutes we noticed 13 yr old male orca T65A3 swimming at speed back to the south in our direction. Suddenly, all the orcas surfaced off our starboard side in a nice tight group milling with 3 of them logging at the surface. We’re not sure what caused them to stop as they had – maybe they found prey or were deciding on which route to take but it wasn’t long before they resumed travel to the north again. We paralleled the orcas all the way up to Turn Pt Lighthouse until they crossed the border continuing north to the Pender Bluffs. It was a really great encounter and we were happy to have had that time with the whales.

Changing course we made our way back to Stuart Island to get a closer look at the lighthouse and the beautiful Lovers Leap. Hugging the shoreline we spotted bald eagles perched high in the trees, belted kingfishers fluttering around, and harbor seals resting along just above the waterline. We checked out the north coast of Spieden Island before working our way around the bull kelp forest and the Cactus Islands. A pair of bald eagles stood together on the west Cactus Island while a pair of young black tailed deer explored the shoreline. Harbor seal pups called out for their mothers near the rocks surrounding Ripple Island National Wildlife Refuge and a pair of black oystercatchers hung out on the huge glacial erratic on the Ripple Island south side.

The winds increased giving us a great close hauled sail to the bottom of Presidents Channel. When we tacked the wind bended around allowing us to sail over the top of Jones Island and cut in close to San Juan Island. We tacked a couple times to get further down the channel before pulling in the headsail to enjoy the San Juan shoreline back to Friday Harbor.

We’d like to mention an end of day summary for today – Around noon T18’s ended up doing a big circle in Georgia Strait and reportedly joined up with the T36’s (T36 and T36B’s) and T36A’s. T65A2, T137A and T137B also joined the party and they all crossed the US border about 2:30pm and travelled down the west side of Patos and Sucia Island. The orcas we were watching earlier traveled east in Boundary Pass. At around 5pm they took off at speed to go join the others who were approximately 7 miles away. T65A2 joined back with his family and they continued around the bottom of Sucia and headed north with the T18’s nearby. The T36’s and T36A’s along with T137A and T137B came down the north side of Orcas Island in Presidents Channel, through Spring Passage, and came down San Juan Channel passing Friday Harbor around 8:25pm.