It was a beautiful, sunny day when our two vessels, Keta and Kula, left the dock to go out and find some whales. From shore-based reports we knew that there were whales spotted close to home, near Entrance Island, it was just a matter of if we would be able to find them or not! The boats spread out and covered some ground where we thought they could be and sure enough, there was a blow! We slowed down and moved in closer and then the giant tail of the humpback came out of the water, it was BCX1377 Nike!

Nike is one of the better-known humpbacks in the area. He is named for the white check mark on the right side of his tail flukes that looks similar to the Nike swoosh. He has been cross-matched down to Mexican Breeding grounds and is known for his fondness for boats. Nike will quite often approach boats and play around with them, usually for just a few minutes at a time. Today we were lucky enough to experience this when he did a quick look at our boats between his feeding dives.

After our hour with Nike was up, we continued south where we had spotted some blows while we were with Nike. We were quick to find a second humpback who wasn't showing off their tail flukes like Nike was, so we weren’t able to match it to any of our known humpbacks on scene. We did get some photos of the dorsal fin which can sometimes lead to a match, but it’s not always as easy. The dorsal fins of humpback whales are pretty small compared to their 20-foot across tail flukes so there is less scarring to look for and most humpback dorsals are about the same shape. There are definitely exceptions to this with some whales dorsals being super distinct because of them having chunks missing or very distinct scarring. Today there is a small white scar on the dorsal fin, likely left behind by a barnacle.
As it happens, sometimes it takes a few encounters with a whale before we can get that all-important fluke shot and confirm an ID. We were lucky enough to encounter our little mystery whale the very next day and they graced us with 1 beautiful fluke! We were able to match that photo to a catalogue and found out our little mystery whale today was Quadrata BCZuk2021#1. The “uk: in the middle of their numbers stands for “unknown”, which means this little whale was first encountered in 2021 and had never been seen before. We don’t know who their mom is, where they over winter, or how they managed to find their way into our waters.

We also ended up seeing plenty of other wildlife during this trip including seals, sea lions, a great blue heron, river otters, and more! Check out all the amazing photos from the day taken by Marine Naturalists Vanessa and Janine below.

September 19th - Nike and Quadrata near Entrance Island

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