April 14, 2024 - Wild Whale Chase!
Today we ended up pushing off the dock early, given that there was a close-by report of whales that we were hoping to catch up with! The sun was shining as we left Nanaimo, scanning the entire time for the tell-tale sign of whales in the distance.
In this case, it was orca spotted from shore earlier in the day. When searching for orca you can keep an eye out for their blows, the puff of water and air that is released as they exhale at the surface. With orca, you will also be able to see their dorsal fins, especially if there is an adult male in the group. A male orca’s dorsal fin can reach an astounding 6 feet tall when they are done growing! A female’s dorsal fin will max out slightly smaller, at about 4 feet tall.
As we searched and searched the area where these whales were supposed to be, nothing came up that we could see. Sometimes, if the whales are doing long dives (which can be around 20 minutes long) and not spending much time at the surface they can be hard to spot, and hard to watch. There’s a slight aspect of luck with this, as you have to be in the right place and looking the right way when they surface otherwise you might miss them!
This was the case today, as these whales never showed up for us. We continued searching for other whales and found some other wildlife as well. We first found a pair of juvenile Bald Eagles spending time together on Snake island. We are always excited when these guys show up! The young eagles don’t have the white head and tail of the adults, but they are still impressive birds.
Next, we headed south in our search, which brought us to a small rocky island east of Valdes Island that we call “Stinky Rock” given its rather smelly inhabitants. Even though they are stinky we still love our Sea Lions, we spent some time with both the Stellers and Californians today! They were entertaining as ever, fighting on the rocks and yelling/barking loudly as we watched them.
Soon after, the adorable Harbour seals started stealing the spotlight with their fantastically cute puppy-like faces. Although much quieter and with less aroma than a seal lion, we love seeing these little rock sausages!
A majestic Great Blue Heron made an appearance today as well! We are very fortunate to have so much to see even when we don’t spot our whales! Also, because our whales eluded us today, everyone got a voucher to come back out with us to try our luck another day! The onboard naturalist, Aly Kohlman, captured some amazing photos of all the wildlife we saw today which can be viewed below!
A pair of juvenile bald eagles wandering on the island.
A young Bald Eagle soaring overhead - they do not develop their signature white head plumage until 5 years of age.
Snoozing sea lions on the top of Stinky Rocks.
Sea lions sun bathing.
Sea lions regularly use each other as pillows.
There were a ton of sea lions at Stinky Rocks today!
Harbour seals, sometimes lovingly referred to as “rock sausages”, can usually be found on rocky coastlines in our area.
Harbour seals have a variety of colorations in their coats, as seen here.
This little seal pup looked like it was trying to fly!
A Great Blue Heron stalks along the shoreline.
The log booms are a favourite resting spot for our California sea lions.
This guy was making sure to show off his best side as we came by.
A pair of neck jousting sea lions.
This neck jousting went on for a bit!
Doesn’t he look comfortable?
A tug boat with Mt.Baker in the background.