Our boats left the harbour on the morning of August 18th with a report of orca in Stuart Channel. On our way to this report, we saw the telltale signs of orca in the distance, blows and dorsals! We slowly approached and were delighted to see T019B Galiano and T019 Nootka travelling together near the De Courcy island chain. Usually, these two are travelling with Nootka’s suspected mother and her other son, Esperanza and Spouter, but lately, it’s been just the two of them.

They were hugging the shoreline and travelling south until they got to Tree Island where their behaviour changed. They started circling and looked to have caught a harbour seal which they made short work of before continuing to travel. At this point, we left the orca behind and went to find other wildlife. We saw Harbour seals and some sea lions on the buoys before making our way back to the harbour.

In the afternoon we headed back to spend some time with Galiano and Nootka to find that they had met up with another pod! It was a T-party! We saw T019 and T019B now travelling with the T037A’s! The T037A’s consist of 5 orcas: T037A Volker, T037A2 Inky, T037A3 Spinnaker, T037A4 Crinkle, and T037A5.

After spending some time with the orcas we headed out into the Strait of Georgia through Porlier Pass up along Valdez Island. Just as we got to Gaviola I island we found Sherwina, a female humpback whale who was first spotted in 2017. She migrates between Hawaii and our water and in 2021 she gave birth to her first calf. Though we generally use the ventral (bottom) side of the fluke, but Sherwina has a very distinct dorsal which makes her easy to identify.

We also got to see Harbour seal pups being nursed on the rocks by Norway island. It is getting close to the end of pupping season in our waters and soon all the young harbour seals will be out and about swimming in our waters. We also got to see the Steller sea lions hauled out on one of the buoys.

Photos by marine naturalists Janine Van Der Linden and Vanessa Vereschahen.