Our journey to Belle Chain Islets was spectacular! We headed south through Dodd Narrows and searched for whales in Stuart Channel and Trincomali Channel before heading through Active Pass between Galiano and Mayne Islands. As soon as we entered Active Pass, we came across a haul-out of Harbour seals on an islet near the Galiano Island side. While we were watching them, we heard about a humpback sighting on the east side of Mayne Island, so we headed there immediately.

By the time we got there, the humpback was in the middle of a deep dive and hadn’t been seen in a while. We quietly sat on the water and kept watch out of the open boat. Someone spotted the humpback near Belle Chain Islets (between Mayne Island and Saturna Island) and so our journey continued south to the farthest edge of our range, where we were rewarded with a sight of Orion! Orion’s first reported sighting was in British Columbia in 2009, and is frequently spotted in the Salish Sea, and at least one time off the coast Tofino. However, we do not know where Orion spends their winters.

In 2017, the SPLASH study was conducted, which was the largest of its kind designed to learn more about humpback migration. Up until that point, little was known about the humpback migration, so several countries surrounding the northern Pacific Ocean participated in the study. GPS trackers were suction-cupped onto humpbacks to track details of their migration in the North Pacific. Specifically, 57% of the humpback whales that spend their summers feeding in the Salish Sea migrate to Hawaii, while the rest migrate south along the western coast of North America and travel to the waters near the Baja peninsula and off the coast of mainland Mexico, and a bold few continue further south to the Costa Rican coast to overwinter: have their calves and mate. This SPLASH study also gathered gender information for humpback. Although Orion is common in our waters, we do not know their gender. A little bit of luck is needed to capture the gender of a humpback. Although both males and females have a genital slit, the males’ slit is closer to their belly, while the females’ is closer to their tail. In addition, females have a grapefruit-sized lump on the tail side of their slit, called a hemispherical lobe. To be able to identify the gender, these nether regions need to be facing the observer, and the shower of water falling off the whale needs to part in such a way as to not block these distinguishing features. No one has yet reported the gender of Orion, and sadly we could not tell from our photos on this trip!

On our way back to the dock, we came across a solitary Blue Heron soaring overhead. Then, we were held hostage by two humpbacks in Dodd Narrows! They were milling up and down the narrows for about 15 minutes, so we did not have the space to safely pass them. Since it is so shallow in the narrows, there isn’t enough space for them to go for deep dives, allowing us to photograph their flukes to identify them.

Once the whales eventually moved from the narrow section of the channel out of the high currents we were able to slowly make our way past them and continue back to the dock.

Below are some of the photos from the day, taken by Marine Naturalist Rebecca Stirling. Please enjoy!