May 17th 3:30 PM - The T065As plus a humpback!

It was the first day of the year of having two departure times! After the morning trip had found orca this tour left looking to find some too. Since the whales from the morning trip had now travelled out of range they headed south into the southern gulf islands where there was another pod of orca who were closer!

These orca, the T065As were in Swanson Channel, at the very south end of the Southern Gulf Islands. Kula was travelling along when one of the guests saw a blow! It was a single humpback whale that surfaced in Trincomali Channel. This is a great example of how many whales are present in our waters, just because we know the location of one group doesn’t mean that we won’t come across another! This is especially true as the humpbacks start to return in higher numbers since they can be spotted from a long distance, sometimes a couple of miles! This humpback wasn’t showing off its tail flukes which is what we usually use to make an ID and since the dorsal of this whale wasn’t very distinct, it will remain a mystery whale!

Even when we don’t know exactly who the humpbacks are it doesn’t take away from the experience of seeing this up to 17m long, 40 ton animal!

Since we had some orca lovers on the tour Kula continued down south to the east shore of South Pender Island! This pod consists of the matriarch T065A Atremis and 4 of her offspring; T065A3 Amira, T065A4 Ellifrit, T065A5 Elsie, and T065A6 Callisto. Typically her son T065A2 Ooxjaa would be travelling with the pod as well but he has taken to travelling alone or with others since he started to sprout a couple years ago! Sproating is when a males dorsal fin starts to grow taller and straighten out due to puberty. Sometimes this comes with teenage rebellion of travelling away from mom. Males who leave their pod will sometimes come back to keep travelling with them but sometimes strike out on their own perminantly.

The orca were travelling quickly close to the shore for the majority of the time we were with them.

After watching the blows and tall black fins moving in and out of the water we left the whales to start our travel back to the harbour. This time there were no unexpected stops, other than for the California Sea Lions which were hauled out at the log booms near the Harmac Pulp Mill.

It was a gret trip getting to see both a humpback whale and some orca! Below are some of the best photos from the trip taken by marine naturalist Rebeka Pirker. Enjoy!