The waters in the harbour rippled in the slight breeze as Kula and Keta prepared their guests for a fantastic day searching for whales and wildlife on the Salish Sea. We had reports of humpback blows between Entrance Island and Snake Island all morning, so we decided to check it out.

The fall is always our favourite time for Humpbacks, as they have been slowly meandering south, preparing to make their migration in about 6 weeks to the tropics. While some of our humpbacks like to spend all summer in our range, a good number of our humpbacks appear in the spring and spend a few weeks refuelling after their long migration before they continue to their favourite summer feeding grounds. Some of our humpbacks continue all the way to Campbell River or even up to Alaska! In the fall all those northern whales start making their way south, often gathering in small groups, as they get in the last few weeks of feeding before the migration starts. It often happens that a number of humpbacks stop right on our doorstep before moving out, and this year is no exception. We’ve had groups of humpbacks reported outside the harbour for several days in a row, and they seem to be the same ones hanging out day after day.

Today our boats started the search, Kula heading for Entrance Island, while Keta made way a bit further north towards Neck point. Keta spotted the fist blow, so Kula turned to join them. As both boats waited for the next blow to get into position and see which whale we had, Kula’s naturalist spotted 2 more blows behind them. We decided to split the boats up so we could ID all the whales hanging out near the harbour.

Kula joined the pair of humpbacks who seemed to be doing tight turns and some speedy movements, they were likely feeding on some surface prey. One of the whales went for a dive, lifting their big tail to the sky. It was BCX1377 Nike! Nike was in the same area yesterday, which means he must have found some good food here. Today Nike had a new friend with him. A small whale who was being a little more difficult to ID. They would zip around with Nike, making quick turns and speeding through the waters, mimicking Nike’s movements. When the pair would dive, however, this little whale wouldn’t lift their tail. We waited patiently for their tail to lift, ad finally the wait paid off! The tail was lifted and our naturalist managed to get a photo of the underside, or the fluke as it’s also called.
This fluke was fairly unique, with so much white on the flukes and so many markings and scars it should have been easy to match up, but they weren’t in any of our onboard catalogues! This happens, as catalogues can’t be reprinted every year, and sometimes we have new arrivals who don’t make it in between prints. A photo was sent into the office to see if they were able to match them to some of our online catalogues or to Happy Whale. After a while, we were able to find a match! It was BCZuk2021#1, Quadrata! Quadrata was documented last year for the first time, which means we know very little about them. Based on their size and the fact that last year was their first documentation, it’s likely that they are only about 2 years old. Nike seems to be fond of the juveniles as he’s spent many days over the last few weeks buddied up with them, feeding and hanging out near Gabriola Island.
Funnily enough, Quadrata was also seen yesterday! They were not with Nike, but were not far away either. At the time they refused to show off their tail, so we only had their dorsal fins to go off of. Dorsal fins can change a lot over a year, especially on small whales, so it’s not surprising we weren’t able to match our whale until we got that beautiful tail shot. Thankfully we had dorsals from the previous trip that matched the dorsal fin on this little whale, confirming that it was little Quadrata on the 19th.

While Kula watched this pair diving through the waters and zig-zagging back and forth, Keta was watching a different whale, not far away. It was BCX 1856 Honu! Honu is a beautiful humpback known to winter in Hawaii. They’ve been around quiet a bit in the last month, usually diving and feeding, filling their belly for the migration to come. Today Honu was up to their usual pattern, surface, breath, dive. However, both boats were treated to a big tail slap before they went for a dive. Honu lifted their tail high up and slapped it down hard, creating quite the splash!

As we neared the end of our time with the Humpbacks we heard of an early morning report of Orca south in the gulf islands heading north. We had time to spare so we decided to head in and see if we could find them. Our fleet travelled through Dodd Narrows, a beautiful area with fast-moving waters, home to unique species of fish, invertebrates and marine life, and continued south towards Yellow-Point. As Kula passed Yellow-point a humpback surfaced behind them, we guessed it was likely Strike. They relayed the information to Keta who wasn’t too far behind but decided to continue the search for the Orca, planning on returning to his humpback before heading to port.

Keta stopped in with our humpback and were able to confirm the lucky guess, it was indeed BCX1675 Strike. Strike is a large female humpback, and she’s been hanging out in this area for several weeks now. Surfacing slowly, predictably taking 4-5 resting breaths before lifting her tail and going for a feeding dive. Strike has been feeding in large lazy circles from Ruxton pass to Yellow-Point, it’s likely she’s found a big ball of food in the islands and has been enjoying the all-you-can-eat buffet. With no competition around she doesn’t seem eager to leave this spot any time soon!

While Keta hung out with Strike, Kula cruised south through the islands, searching for those orca. They travelled past Ladysmith and around the southern end of Penelakut Island before stopping at the Miami islets to see the harbour seals. There were plenty of chunky little seals hauled out on the rocks, enjoying the mid-day sun. Most of the time the harbour seals are relatively quiet, especially compared to their larger cousins, the sea lions. However, today the group was quite loud! A few of the seals were barking and grunting at each other.

Kula left the harbour seals and caught up with Keta to see what Strike was up to. She continued her giant circle, and Kula and Keta left her heading northwest towards Dodd Narrows. Both boats made a stop at Harmac Pulp mill to see the California sea lions who seem to be returning slowly for the winter. Unlike our humpbacks who hang out in the summer and vanish in the winter, our sea lions are the opposite! They disappear in mid-June for the breeding grounds, and in this case, our California sea lions head all the way to California for the summer. In a few short weeks, there will be dozens, if not hundreds, of these sea lions resting on the log booms near Harmac though today there was only a handful. These sleepy sea lions were getting a much-deserved rest after their long trip from the warm waters of California.

Enjoy the photos from the tour taken by marine naturalists Rebeka Pirker and Janine Van Der Linden.

September 20th - Nike, Quadrata, Honu, and Strike! It's Humpback Soup!

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