July 18th 3:30 - An afternoon encounter with humpback whales!

Our boats Cascadia and Kula set off the dock from Nanaimo at 3:30pm and headed out into beautiful calm conditions. We headed northeast towards the Sunshine Coast where humpback whales had been sighted earlier that day.

It didn’t take long for us to locate a couple of deep diving humpbacks just south of Sechelt. Familiar flukes and dorsals came out of the water and our marine naturalists were able to identify the whales as Nuage (KEX0009) and Chinook (KEY0020). Nuage has a noticeable white line on the one side of its fluke and Chinook has a beautiful marble pattern all over its fluke.

We can use these different patterns and markings to search through our photo catalogues of all of the different humpback whales in the area. Humpbacks were hunted to the brink of extinction but in the past 8 years or so the local population has grown exponentially. There are so many negative stories in environmental news, it’s so nice to have such a positive and inspirational story right in our backyard!

Keta Coastal Conservation is just one of the organizations that works locally to monitor the growth and movements of these incredible animals. They publish a free online catalogue of the different humpback whales that have been sighted in the northern Salish Sea and you can access it here: http://www.ketacoastalconservation.org/keta-catalogue-the-salish-sea

Here are some of the best photos our marine naturalists Brad and Cheyenne captured during the tours!

Jilann LechnerJuly 23, 2021Comment