With that, our 2024 whale watching tour season has come to a close. We had 3 great tours this weekend to close out our season, sighting killer whales on 2 of them and humpback whales on the third.
On Friday’s tour, just as we were leaving the dock we got a call from a fellow whale watch captain that there were killer whales very close to Anacortes. We quickly made our way over to
Lopez sound where we met up with the T035A and T123 families of orcas. It was very cool to see the T123’s again after a bit of a hiatus from our local tour area. We watched the two families traveling together and getting quite social and playful several times.
On Saturday’s tour, we had a lovely encounter with the T035A family, who sometime overnight broke off from spending time with the T123’s. We were also able to catch up with T063 and T065 traveling up Bellingham channel. It is always awesome to see Chainsaw and his mom Whidbey, they are true legends of the Pacific Northwest.
On Sunday’s tour, we ventured west toward Race Rocks where we encountered many humpback whales in glass calm water. In total we encountered 5 humpback’s, but there were several more all around we did not have time to see. We also had the chance to make our way through the Race Rocks ecological preserve, which in the fall is absolutely magical.
2024 proved to be an absolutely amazing year for touring here in the Salish Sea. The Bigg’s killer whale explosion we are experiencing continues to blow my mind. This year we ended the year seeing killer whales on 195 out of 226 tours. Last year was amazing as well, when we saw killer whales on 165 out of 219 tours. We can’t wait to see what next year brings!
