June 10th - A busy day with humpbacks, orcas, sea lions, seals, and eagles!

Cascadia started towards Entrance Island in search of whales and took a brief stop to visit with the boisterous sea lions. We continued south and found two humpback whales on the east side of Valdes Island. Valdes is a long narrow island, about 1.6km wide and 16km long. It is one of the only larger Gulf Islands that doesn’t have public ferry access!

The two humpbacks were moving slowly in circles, potentially feeding. Humpbacks come all the way north from the breeding ground for our cold, nutrient dense waters. They use their baleen to filter feed on things such as herring, krill, sandlance, and more. We’ve witnessed the exponential growth of our local humpback population, and one of the main guesses as to why is the good eats!

After viewing the humpbacks we tucked into the Gulf Islands for a bit of a scenic tour and to look for other wildlife. We were expecting to find seals and eagles, and we were delightfully surprised when we found two large orcas on the way home! Just north of Dodd Narrows, near Harmac, killer whales T128 (Flotsam) and T125A (Jetsam) were traveling along the log booms. Flotsam is an adult male who was born in 1988 and has a large nick in the bottom of his dorsal fin. Jetsam is also a mature male and was born in 1998. He has a very large nick in the middle of fin that is incredibly unique.

We also had a beautiful encounter with a mature bald eagle perched on a log boom. Our marine naturalist Ryan managed to get some incredible shots of those talons and eagle eyes! Here are the best photos taken by Ryan on the tour: