Today we found our whales travelling north along the shores of Parksville. It was the T099’s, Bella, Holly, Barakat, Puck, and little T099E.
This family was slowly cruising, minding their own business and hugging the shores as they made their way towards the French Creek Marina.

We left the T099s to their family road trip and continued on to find a humpback sleeping off Qualicum Beach. This lone humpback was logging right at the surface, her dorsal visible the entire time she rested. We stopped our boats a good distance away and cut the engines. The waters were flat and calm, allowing us to sit, watch, and enjoy the sounds of her breathing.
We ID’d this lone was as Potamus. Potamus was one of our staff’s bucket-list whales, simply for her unusual name, so they were very excited that they finally got to meet them. Potamus is a Hawaii whale who has returned to the Salish Sea every year since 2011 when their mother Wink showed them our feeding grounds. Potamus typically hangs out up near Campbell River, so we aren’t sure what she is doing in our neck of the woods.
Typically when humpbacks sleep they rest just below the surface, keeping their skin moist and helping to prevent sunburn. Potamus must have wanted to work on her tan, as she never sunk below the surface of the water. Every 4 minutes she would exhale loudly, her breath rising from the surface in a plume.
Right as we were getting ready to make or way back towards the harbour Potamus woke up from her nap and gave a big splash, well several splashes! She exhales, arched her back, as if stretching, and then cartwheeled her tail up and out of the water in a huge arch. She rolled onto her back and spent several minutes slapping the water with her tail, then rolled to her belly and resumed the tail slapping!
After a few minutes of slapping, she fluked slowly and gracefully and headed for the depths for a feed.
While we watched her sleeping the waters around our boats were rolling with fish, so there was plenty around for her to snack on.

After the beautiful show, we turned to head home and were stopped about halfway back by 2 more orca. These 2 were ID’d as the T46B’s. This small family of 2 is led by mother Tread who is 19 years old, and her daughter Tsakani. Tread was the mother of the white whale, Tl’uk. Unfortunately, it’s believed that Tl’uk passed away as his last sighting was in early 2021. Tl’uk likely had Chediak Higashi syndrome, a rare genetic immune condition that results in light pigmentation at birth, growing darker as they age, and generally comes with a drastically reduced life span.

In the afternoon tour, the T099s had made it too far north to find again, and Potamus seemed to have disappeared as well. However, we were able to find Tread and Tsakani again, this time much closer to home.

Along with the whales, we also saw Pacific harbour seals, Stellar sea lions, and plenty of birds.
Enjoy the photos of our whales and wildlife taken by marine naturalists Rebeka Pirker and Carmen Murphy.

August 16th - Orcas a plenty and a new Humpback whale for us!

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