When we left the dock for the afternoon tour with sharp eyes to search for the whales that had been reported in the area earlier. We ended up having to travel a bit further than expected before the blow of a humpback caught our eye! We headed over to where we had been seeing it and were greeted by Eros, a new humpback for us this year, and Sherwina (KEY0034).

Sherwina is usually very easy to ID because of her beautiful ‘paint-dipped’ fluke tips. Today, however, she wasn’t being very cooperative and we were unable to get a good fluke photo. Thankfully her dorsal fin is also very unique - it has a ‘scoop’ out of the back edge. We were able to cross reference her dorsal and dorsal scarring to our catalogues to verify her identity today.

Sherwina (KEY0034). Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Eros is also easy for us to ID since he had a nearly all-black fluke, other than the barnacle scars and other scratches along the bottom side. He seems to have very speckled skin, leading us to wonder if he has a skin condition and that’s why he approaches boats. It seems like he is scratching himself against the bottom of the vessels, maybe trying to find some relief.

Eros (CRC-17151). Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

No one really knows why humpbacks “mug” the boats. It might be to scratch an itch or maybe they just like hearing people scream! It seems to be a learned behaviour as we have witnessed whales who are known to be curious about boats travelling with younger whales and showing them how to do it. This could also be purely coincidental but we like to think of the whales as being more clever than that.

No matter why they do it, it’s always a breathtaking experience when a whale decides to approach the vessel. Humpbacks can get to be about 17 meters long and weigh up to 35 tons which can be hard to imagine when watching them from a distance as we usually do. If they approach us, then it becomes hard to ignore. We never try and force or encourage close interactions with the animals but sometimes the whales have other ideas! Eventually, Eros got bored of us and continued with his travels, so we also continued with ours and started the journey back towards Nanaimo Harbour.

We stopped at Entrance Island to see some seals and the scenic lighthouse there and as we were leaving we saw another blow in the distance, accompanied by a black dorsal fin, it was an Orca! As we got closer and captured some photos we determined this to be T065A5 Indy! This young orca has been travelling away from his pod for the last while, and we aren’t sure why. It seems that a few of his siblings have also left the pod behind to go adventuring on their own such as her brother T065A3 Amir and occasionally T065A2 Ooxjaa. More likely than not, these whales will eventually end up back along their mother’s side. For now, though, he seems to be enjoying his isolation. We watched him for a little while before having to return to the harbour as the sun was setting.

Overall, it was a great day on the water getting to spend time with Eros and Indy. The onboard naturalist Vanessa Vereschahen captured some amazing moments which you can see below!

September 9th 3:30 PM - Eros, Sherwina, and T065A5 Indy

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