We had an amazing day out on the water on the 26th finding a total of 7 humpbacks and much more wildlife on the water! When we left the harbour nothing had been found yet, but with pretty good weather and some luck on our side we ventured out through the Southern Gulf Islands and into the Strait of Georgia where we encountered what can only be described as “humpback soup”! This is the term we use when it seems like there is no escaping the whales on the water and everywhere you turn another whale will pop up. This was definitely the case here. As we were watching a single humpback, who is still a mystery on who it was, another two popped up right next to the first! These two surprise whales were identified as Raptor and her 2020 calf Harpy. These three whales danced around our boat doing lazy flukes and dives until there was some excitement out of the calf, Harpy. Although we don’t know what caused it they started to surface quicker and do a couple tail flicks! It was an amazing site to see as Harpy is a Z type whale, meaning her fluke is almost entirely white on the underside! This makes for a very striking contrast against the dark water.

While watching these whales we were seeing more blows off in the distance so we decided to go check out those whales and see who it was. It turned out to be another four humpbacks; Heather and her 2020 calf Neowise, Snoopy, and an exciting new whale named Sherwina! Heather and Neowise didn’t stick around for long but we got some really good looks at the remaining whales! The one was really easy to ID right away as Snoopy, since he has a large chunk taken out of his right fluke. He was surfacing with a whale we haven’t seen before who was later identified as Sherwina. The reason that this encounter was interesting is that this whale has been seen in three different summer feeding grounds within the last few years. It is thought that the whales who go to particular feeding grounds are a specific subset of the population and that there is site fidelity, meaning that they usually return to the same area year after year. This whale visiting three different feeding grounds is a very interesting discovery!

After finally making our way away from the group of humpbacks we travelled north looking for other wildlife and were not disappointed. We found harbour seals, Steller sea lions, and some California sea lions too!

It was an amazing day spent on the water! Here are some of the photos taken by naturalist Val Watson during the trip.