June 21st 3:30 PM - The T049As (-A1 and A2) as well as a handful of humpbacks!
We found ourselves cruising down through the Gulf Islands on the afternoon of June 21st. As we travelled along the west coast of Galiano Island we spotted a blow, our first whale of the trip! It was a humpback, a large member of the Balaenopteridae family, this family includes all baleen whales. These gentle giants spend their summer in our cold northern waters filter-feeding on small fish, krill, and plankton. As we settled in to watch this whale we realized they were likely doing just that, filter-feeding below the surface. We managed to get one nice tail-slap from our whale before they disappeared below the surface. They had been down for a while when we decided to head off, clearly, our big friend here was busy in the deeps filling their belly.
We continued to cruise southbound through the Gulf Islands and out to the Strait of Georgia through Active Pass, where we found the T049A’s traveling north along Galiano Island.
The T049A’s are familiar fins we are happy to see again. We spent a while with them earlier this year, as they cruised around Nanaimo, showing off their new baby.
Nan, the matriarch of the T049A’s, gave birth earlier this year and her young one is still nice and orange. This baby is growing fast and we’re happy to see them doing well. A single member of the family was missing today, Noah (T049A1), who is known to break off from his mom’s pod to travel alone or with friends. Earlier this year Nan’s 2 oldest boys, Noah and Jude, both left the family for a while to travel with their Aunt Van (T049B) and other pods. This is normal behavior for young male orcas, as they don’t breed with their own family and as orcas don’t have breeding seasons, they often travel apart from mom for days to weeks at a time but almost always return to her side.
Today Nan was traveling with her sons Jude (T049A2, 15), Nat (T049A3, 11), Neptune (T049A4, 8), and daughter Nebula (T049A5, 5), and newest calf T049A6. They will hopefully be getting a nickname sometime in the next year or 2.
After spending some time catching up with Nan and her kids we started our cruised back towards Nanaimo but were stopped once again as we spotted more blows!
It was 2 more humpbacks just off of Pebble beach on Galiano Island. These 2 were also doing some long dives, just like our friend earlier. However, they were fluking nicely for us and we were able to ID one of our whales as Orion. Orion is a confirmed male that we’ve seen every summer, in fact, he’s been seen every year in the Salish Sea since at least 2009. We saw Orion a few days ago and he was traveling with a female named Divot. We weren’t able to confirm the ID of Orion’s friend today but it’s possible that it was Divot.
After a few surfaces with Orion and his friend, we continued north, stopping at the UM buoy to see the Steller Sea Lions resting before we rounded Gabriola and returned to harbour.
Enjoy the photos of our wildlife from today’s tour taken by marine naturalist Vanessa
T049A6 surfacing with mom, T049A Nan.
T049A4 Neptune surfacing.
T049A4 Neptune going for a dive.
T049A3 Nat.
BCX1251 Orion going down for a dive.
Orion showing off his large tail flukes as he dives!
Some sleepy Sea Lions on the bell buoy outside Porlier.