Our two vessels set out south from the Nanaimo Harbour on the morning of June 6th on the search for whales. It wasn’t long before… THAR SHE BLOWS! One of the boats spotted the telltale sign of whales in the distance. First, there was a bunch of excited people watching off one side of their sailboat (a good sign that something cool is going on) and next a blow and dorsal fin came cutting out of the waves. It was orca!

As we got closer we could see a bunch of small fins surfacing with one large one in the middle of them. This large dorsal fin turned out to belong to one of the oldest male transient orca known in our area T087 Harbeson! He is estimated to have been born in 1962, making him 60 years old! The average life span for our male transient orca is only about 30-40 years so he is very impressive! He is also easy to ID from the square notch out of the top of his dorsal fin, as well as the slight hook to the left it has at the tip.

Travelling with Harbeson were the T086As (-A1) and the T124A4’s! These pods are relatively small, only having 3 and 5 members, respectively. These two pods have been spending a lot of time hanging out in our area and have been being seen frequently over the last new weeks. Harbeson was travelling with a different group the last time he was spotted before this encounter, so it was interesting to see him in the mix!

After watching our orca continue their travels south through the gulf islands we left in search of a small humpback whale that had been spotted not far from where we were. Once we got to the area it was in we saw one small surface and then the humpback disappeared, never to be seen again.

Besides our orca and mysterious disappearing humpback, we also got to visit our harbour seals, some sleepy sea lions on the UM buoy, our cormorant rookery at the Gabriola Bluffs, and a bevy of river otters on the dock next to ours!

Today’s photos are by Marine Naturalists Rebecca Stirling and Vanessa Vereschahen.