Anacortes Whale Watch

Highlights

Bigg's Killer Whales (T49As, T63, & T65)
Humpback Whale
Harbor Porpoises
Steller Sea Lions
Bald Eagles
Harbor Seals

July 11, 2025 | 1 PM Whale Watch

What luck that word of whales should come in just as we left the dock! With excitement, we cruised down Rosario Strait and on towards Juan de Fuca. We admired a bald eagle circling over Davidson Rock, getting close looks when it flew over the bow. Upon reaching McArthur Bank we met up with the legendary mother-son duo, the T65s! Chainsaw and Whidbey were spread out and searching the tide lines. Whidbey covering more ground than her son. As we watched the Bigg’s, a sharp-eyed guest spied a blow nearby. It was a humpback! We waved goodbye to the orcas and turned north with our new rorqual friend. While they never showed flukes, they did tease us repeatedly with dramatic arches of the back before each deeper dive. Its ID will remain a mystery. It was smooth home sailing from there, enjoying coastline views near Castle and Colville Islands on the way home.

With winds growing to the south, we opted for an entirely different route this afternoon. Across Rosario Strait, through Thatcher Pass, slowing to pass through Pole Pass where gaggles of Canada geese were gathered, and north towards Boundary Pass. It was in Canadian waters, near Blunden Island, that we met up with the T49As. Nan and her four youngest, Nat, Neptune, Nebula and Charlie II were working the coastlines, likely hoping to flush seals from the kelp. The backdrop was stunning, made all the more spectacular with the softening evening light. They led us out into the Pass, working the intense current lines that were forming there. It sounded like river rapids at times, the tidal shift creating significant chop at the surface. They weren’t the only cetaceans here, harbor porpoises kept surfacing around us as well.

The pod of orcas led us east, under the watchful gaze of Koma Kulshan. We truly could not have asked for a more breathtaking setting, no matter what direction you looked. Now far enough east to warrant a new route home, we cruised along the northern shoreline of Orcas and marveled at the beauty of the steep tree-lined coast. We wound up nearly circumnavigating Orcas on our cruise, and ended the route with a run down the eastern side of Guemes Island. What a phenomenal end to a stellar day.

-Sam