February 2026 Reports and Updates

Photo by Capt. Ryan from our 2/28 Quest.

February is the dead of winter and there are many Killer Whales around! It's just a question of whether we can GET to them. And this past month there was challenges surrounding that. To be honest, it was a bit demoralizing for both our crew and customers Feburary 2026.

As you may know, our Quests are scheduled for every week Friday through Sunday. That gave us 12 scheduled Killer Whale trips for this month. How many of those were cancelled or diverted due to unsuitable conditions? Nine out of twelve, or 75% unfortunately. We do not like to force trips out if we don't think there's a good chance of finding Killer Whales.

Let's talk about the three great trips though!

2/1: We had some very rare Killer Whales in awesome conditions far offshore. A few of these we had actually never seen before! The ones we had seen before were only sighted 1-2 previously. In total, we saw about 10 orcas. We had VIPs onboard from the California Killer Whale Project, Nancy Black and Alisa Schulman-Janiger, which made these rare sightings all the more special!

2/21: The CA212s, CA113s, and CA216Bs. This day was awesome as the two huge males from the 212s and 113s were hanging out together, making for some great photos. After spending hours of quality time with the first two families, we found "morcas" on the way home! And it was the charismatic "Jagged's Pod".

2/28: More rare Killer Whales! We still are waiting on California Killer Whale Project to sort through many pictures, but we had close to a dozen total. The easy ones to identify were the CA122As with big male CA122C. They harassed 3 sea lions without killing a single one. But it was some awesome viewing as the 122 family and about 6 or so mystery orcas joined up together, with lots of breaching and tail throwing.

So, because of the high cancellation rate for Feb 2026, does that mean you should write off any February trips with us in the future? Well, no.... it remains a time in which there are many Killer Whales in the Channel Islands, exhibiting awesome behaviors against some beautiful backdrops. You're just going to have to be a bit more persistent, flexible, and lucky. If you want to get a photo like my tail-throwing male orca, it's not going to happen sitting on the couch!