We left Nanaimo Harbour on February, 10th with high expectations of finding some whales. Although there was no recent reports of whales in our area, the weather was near perfect for whale watching, thus we decided to explore the Strait of Georgia.

After spending some time watching a group of excited Steller sea lions on Entrance Island, we decided to keep traveling south and we were lucky enough to find a group of whales just 15 minutes after that.

This pod was made up of 5 individuals and was identified as the T037As. The T037As is a family group led by the matriarch of the family, T037A, aka, Volker. She was born in 1994 and has 5 surviving offspring! Her eldest, T037A1 (Inyo), doesn’t always travel with her, but we did get to see her with the other four - T037A2 (Inky), T037A3 (Spinnaker), T037A4 (Crinkle), and T037A5 who is the newest to the pod being born in 2019.

The T37As are part of a larger family since Volker is the oldest daughter of T37, aka, Rocky III.
T37, was born around 1979 and usually travels with her daughter 37B (Harold) from 1998, and her grandchildren 37B1, Lance, and 37B2, Trident. Since Volker has 5 calves of her own, it makes sense that she’s formed her own big pod.

Killer whales can be identified by the shape of their dorsal fins as well as the scarring and patterns in the grey area behind the dorsal fin called the saddle patch. It can be tricky to tell a bunch of females a part or young ones who’s saddle patches aren’t too distinct, but Volker has a huge nick about half way down her fin which helps give her away.

Her offspring T037A4 “Crinkle” has a very unique fin that is wide and somewhat flat on the top, giving us another easy one to ID from this pod. Another curious fact about Crinkle, she is the only daughter of Volker, all her other offspring are males.

After watching this beautiful family traveling north we were back on “search mode” and could also find a large group of California and Steller Sea Lions resting in a log boom.

Here are some of the best photos taken that day by marine naturalists Rebeka Pirker and Cheyenne Brewster. We are running daily departures at 11am, come join us for an adventure!

February 10th - T37As just around the corner!

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