Orca sightings span across Kitsap waters
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, April 7, 2026
In the past few weeks, you may have seen fellow Bainbridge Islanders driving with binoculars in hand, running from their cars to look-out spots such as Fay Bainbridge Park or the Point White Pier. Don’t be alarmed. Those looking out toward Seattle and South Kitsap County have been on the pursuit to catch a glimpse of orcas.
A group of never-before-seen orcas in the Pacific Northwest have been swimming up and down the Puget Sound, occasionally jumping out from the waves, visible to the eye from the shore. These orcas were first spotted in Canada’s Vancouver Harbor before making their journey down to the Seattle, Bainbridge Island, and South Kitsap waters.
A video began to go viral on Facebook of a rower who encountered a trio of orcas. Bainbridge Islander Steve Connor was out for a practice run March 28 for a rowing competition that extends from Tacoma to Port Townsend. Connor was making his way from Eagle Harbor to Fay Bainbridge when he rowed backwards into the orca pod in the water off Yaquina. “I unexpectedly rowed into them,” he said. “I was concerned for a while when it seemed like they made a turn toward me and I think my boat might have been bumped by the little [orca]. It was quite the experience.”
The orcas were about 30 yards away from Connor when he first spotted them, but seconds later, they approached him and were only about 10 yards away. “It was a little unsettling. I tried to collect myself and paddle away a little bit and after I caught my breath, I thought I’d take a video of them,” he said. “I rode away and they kept surfacing. I accidentally got a front row seat to watch them!”
After Connor made it safely to shore, he told friends and family about his experience with the orcas. “One of them had posted my video to a Facebook group, and before I knew it, they were telling me I was famous,” he said. “Someone watching the orcas with binoculars from the shore had seen the whole thing…across social media, people were asking, ‘Who is orca guy?’ And I was like, wait, that’s me!”
Connor hasn’t been out on the water with the orcas since, but as he often rides the Bainbridge-Seattle ferry, he has heard announcements from the captain that the pod is nearby. The boat even had to momentarily stop to let them pass in late March and early April.
Those looking to sneak a peak of the killer whales have used orcanetwork.org, which tracks recent whale sightings in the Pacific Northwest. Around Bainbridge Island, the pod, which is assumed to be from Alaska, has been sighted recently at Point White, Fort Ward, Fay Bainbridge, and Prichard Park. They have also been spotted in other areas such as Indianola, Suquamish, Illahee, Manchester, and along the shore all the way from Anacortes down to Tacoma.
The pod was originally unidentified, but now the three orcas have been ID’d as T419, T420, and T42, but people are calling them “The Cookies”, due to their cookie-cutter shark bite scars.
