It was another beautiful day as we left the harbour on the morning of August 12th. Although there were clouds in the sky, the winds were calm, and we ended up finding our first whale right outside the harbour! It was BCZ0432 Two Spot! Two Spot is a Z-type whale, meaning that he has more than 80% of the underside of its tail flukes white. The Z-type humpbacks are the least common of the three classifications (X, Y, and Z) but the most striking! An X-type is nearly entirely black and a Y-type will have anywhere between 20-80% of their tail flukes white. Today Two Spot was travelling while doing feeding dives along the Gabriola coastline, and you can even see Entrance Island in the background of some of the photos from the morning! We watched as Two Spot lifted his 20-foot wide tail out of the water to help propel him down to the krill and small schooling fish below.

After we watched Two Spot there was lots of other wildlife to observe in the area, including harbour seals hauled out along the small islands with shallow slopes to their beaches. The seals require this type of island since they move along the ground in a movement called galumphing! It’s basically when the seals do the worm to move. Our harbour seals do this since they can’t rotate their hind flippers to walk, instead bumping around on the ground!

We also saw Steller Sea Lions piled on top of various buoys when travelling the Salish Sea. While Kula was transiting between the seals and sea lions they came across another surprise, the T137s travelling near Halibut Bank! This pod consists of 4 members: T137 Loon, T137A Jack, T137B Tempest, and T137D Wright. This pod of transient orca is very easy to identify since most members have very distinct notches out of their dorsals. There is also Jack, a large male famous among whale watchers for his curiosity! He is often intrigued by the vessels and can come closer to inspect us. Today though, he only had interest in his fellow orca and stayed with the group.

Our vessels returned safely to the harbour for the morning, and shortly after left again in search of the same whales! They headed to the group of orca which had since met up with another pod, the T002Cs and they were now having a T-party! A T-party is what it’s called when different pods of transient orca gather together to socialize. The T002Cs consist of 4 whales: T002C Tasu, T002C1 Rocky, T002C3 Lucky and T002C5. After closer inspection of our photos, we also realized that the T124A4s were there! That is two whales, T124A4 Sabio and her 2021 calf. Today they were in full socialization mode, with lots of surface activity. We got to see them breaching, tail slapping, cartwheeling, and travelling very close together.

The T002Cs are a very interesting pod which are a great example of familial connections with our orca. They had a member of their pod, T002C2 Tumbo, who had scoliosis. The issue with his spine made it so he couldn’t swim as fast as the rest of the members of his pod, leading to him constantly falling behind. They would swim ahead of him but then loop back and never be outside of the vocal range of orca so they can stay in communication. It was also suspected that he would be unable to hunt on his own, meaning that even though he wasn’t contributing to the hunts his family was still sharing all of their food with him to keep him healthy. Unfortunately, Tumbo is presumed to have passed away but still serves as an amazing example of the compassion that orca have for each other.

Throughout the two experiences, we captured a lot of amazing moments on camera, and you can see all of those photos below! They are taken by our onboard marine Naturalists Carmen, Aly, and Vanessa. Please enjoy!

BCZ0432 Two Spot Humpback Whale Entrance Island Whale Watching — Two Spot in front of Entrance Island. Photo by Aly Kohlman, 10:30 am.

August 12th - A day spent with the T137s, T002Cs, and Two Spot the humpback!

© Vancouver Island Whale Watch 2018-2024. All Rights Reserved.