May 13th - T65B's, T75B's, and T75C's found right in our backyard!

Luck was in our favour when we left the harbour on the 13th. We headed off the dock with Cascadia and Keta out to search for whales and ended up finding them right outside the harbour! It was a group of Transient Orca, the T65B’s, T75B’s and the T75C’s.

Five of the whales surfacing together heading towards Dodds Narrows! Photo by Rodrigo Menezes.

T65B is easy to ID since she has a large nick out of the bottom of her dorsal fin, giving her her common name, Chunk. She travels with her young son, Birdsall, who was born in 2011. She is only 26 herself, being born in 1993.

T65B “Chunk” on the left. Note the nick at the bottom of her dorsal. Photo by Rodrigo Menezes.

The other pod present, the T75B’s, are a 25 year old orca travelling with her offspring and her sister. These would be T75B (Pebbles), T75B2 (Fifi), and T75C (Bam-bam).

We travelled southward with the whales with lots of excitement along the way! They travelled down Northumberland Channel until they got to Dodds Narrows. Passing through the narrows can be tough sometimes because the currents can be really strong (up to 15 knots!) but lucky for these whales the current was in their favour and pulled them through to the other side. We stayed with them for a little while after passing through Dodds then left them to find some other local wildlife!

We were lucky and got to see a lot of different animals including Canadian Geese and their goslings, harbour seals, Steller’s sea lions, and California sea lions.

We got lots of amazing pictures during the tour! Check them out below:

Jilann LechnerMay 16, 20192 Comments