Saturday was cooler and a bit windier than it had been during the week, but that didn’t stop our adventurers from heading out to search for wildlife! Our boats left Nanaimo at noon and headed south towards Porlier Pass, a deep churning channel in-between Valdes and Galiano Island.

Just outside of the pass our boats encountered a lone killer whale, a female named T036 “Flapjack”. This was a very peculiar sighting because orcas are extremely social and family oriented, so we usually don’t see them traveling alone. What makes this even more unique is that this whale is an adult female, estimated to be born sometime around 1970! She is the matriarch of her pod, the T036s, and is usually see traveling with her daughter T036B and her grand-whales.

We watched Flapjack travel north, potentially foraging for marine mammals such as seals, sea lions or porpoises.Maybe the rest of her family were close by and we couldn’t find them, or maybe they have decided to separate for any number of reasons, we might never know. As much as we observe and educate ourselves on the social structures of killer whales, these smart, complicated whales never fit the mold!

One of our boats also encountered a humpback whale near Thrasher Rock in the Strait of Georgia. After waiting patiently for the whale to lift it’s giant tale out of the water, our naturalist was able to get a photograph of the fluke, the money shot! From this photo she ID’d the humpback whale as Snoopy (BCY0770). Snoopy has a very unique fluke with a large chunk missing out of the right side that is surrounded by white.

We left these whales traveling peacefully in the Salish Sea and continued on the look for seals, sea lions, and seabirds. Here are some of the best photos taken during the tour by Beka Pirker and Rebecca Stirling.

October 2nd - Humpback whales fluking and a lone orca

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