September 19th - Gentle Giants in the Salish Sea

Another fall day with humpback soup on the menu!

Our boats headed south towards Gabriola and Valdes Island and after about an hour of searching they located some humpback whales! An individual named Honu was traveling alone near the Flat Top Islands and one of our boats got a fluke shot before heading on to watch others. Humpbacks whales have unique fluke patterns and trailing edges which help us to tell them apart from each other, much like a human fingerprint!

The next whales to be found were Fader and Vanta who were traveling together, fluking lots, and even trumpeting. We’ve seen Fader a lot in our waters over the past couple of years!

One of our boats encountered humpback whales Windy and Europa and calf traveling together. Windy is one of the original humpbacks that whale watching boats in the Salish Sea encountered in the beginning of the “humpback comeback”, so it is always great to see this individual.

The other boat encountered humpback whale Jackson traveling with an unknown, and were lucky enough to see a cartwheel! This is when the whale flings its tail out of the water and around, like a cartwheel, and guests are treated to seeing the enormity of the whale when its full body is out of the water. This is a very energetic behaviour so the whales don’t do it too often.

Here are some photos taken by marine naturalists Val Watson and Beka Pirker, enjoy!

Jilann LechnerSeptember 21, 2021Comment