Our last weekly trip recap of 2025 is here! It’s hard to believe that our official season is over, but the weather sure has turned and so we relent to mother nature until spring comes around again. Over the last two weeks we have had to cancel more tours than we have been able to take, with big wind being the culprit for canceling, as it often is come late October. But when we have had the weather windows to take guests out on the water we have had some phenomenal sightings.
Since we’ve only been able to head out on three of our eight scheduled trips in the last two weeks, I was figuring that our Bigg’s killer whale numbers would be slightly down in this report. But looking back, we still wound up with a much larger number than I would have expected! We had the T34s and T37s pop in, the T37As, all of the T49As (but in different groupings), and T65A5 to give us 19 individuals to round out the last 3 trips.
On our first of the last three trips out, two Bigg’s killer whale males who have broken away from their core family groups and do some “roaming” alone synced up to travel together for a little while, the infamous T65A5 “Indy,” and T49A2 “Jude.” It was fun watching these two younger males spending some time together, and they even got a little playful with some tail slaps and spy hops while we were on scene.
Our second of the last three trips out, we encountered the T37As (a group of 3) as they meandered into the islands, resting a bit while we were on scene with them. They appeared to be waiting on the tide to even out before switching to hunting mode. The very next day they were reported by some of our PWWA friends as heading back out west, making it a very short trip this time around.
And our last trip of the season was a jaw-dropper–14 Bigg’s killer whales on this tour (we did not encounter them all at the same time)! We had the T49A family group with the oldest male offspring, T49A1 “Noah,” actually traveling with his family (he often does not) (6), and then found the T34s and T37s (group of 8) in the ferry lanes not far from our marina on our way back to the docks. Somehow, we managed to dodge the rain and fit time in with both of these groups, getting guests the experience with a fully grown adult male, and then three younger whales spread throughout these 3 different family groups. It was truly a wonderful way to close out the 2025 season!
We only had one baleen whale encounter over the last two weeks, and that was with humpback whale Sylvester! That little whale was hanging around the east side of Orcas Island feeding on some nice bait balls of forage fish in this area. Even though we only encountered the one humpback, there has definitely still been activity around the San Juan Islands and also out west as humpbacks are still pushing that way to make their long migrations.
It’s going to be hard to wait a few months before getting back out on the water, but we want to thank all of our guests that came out with us for the 2025 season and are looking forward to introducing a whole new group of people to the whales and wildlife of the Salish Sea in 2026!
