Summer seems to have finally left us as the cool autumn air rolls in, though the whales are still here, so we are still out! 2 of our boats pushed off at 12 noon, eager eyes peeled, searching the waves for signs of whales.
The humpback soup is still simmering right outside the harbour, so it didn’t take long to spot the blows as we neared Snake Island. 2 Humpbacks were travelling between Snake Island and Gabriola, right along the Duke Point ferry line. There must be a large bait ball here, as the whales seem to be congregating in this spot. As soon as we had our whales we lifted our flags, alerting other boats to the presence of the whales, and made a report on the whale report app, an app developed by Ocean Wise, that is used to inform ferries, freighters, and other large vessels in the area. This report helps larger boats know the whales' location ahead of time and change course or travel slower to avoid collisions. With these whales hanging out right on the ferry line it’s important to give the ferries as much notice as possible.

We settled in to watch these 2 and see what they would get up to. It wasn’t long before we had our first fluke, it was Honu BCX1856! Honu has been here several days now, essentially in the same spot, just reaffirming that there must be some good food in the water.
Travelling with Honu today was Olympus BCX1057 calf 2018. Olympus is the 2018 calf of Divot, a well-known female to the area, and to us. Olympus spent quite a bit of time with us last year as well, leaving us with some pretty interesting stories. Last August Olympus was found playing with a stick, or more accurately, a tree branch, like a giant water dog! She was rolling around at the surface, batting the branch around with her pec fins, pushing it and lifting it out of the water with her nose, and a few times we watched as she would get the stick right in her blow hole! Maybe she had an itch in there she just couldn’t scratch! After playing with her stick she actually approached the boats and pooped right next to them! It was so close our naturalist could have reached over and scooped it up. While it’s not the most pleasant sight or smell, it does allow us to see that she was definitely eating a healthy diet filled with krill, the poop was bright orange!

We’re happy to see Olympus again and so close to home. Today Olympus and Honu were travelling and feeding, and they both treated us to a cartwheel! This is when they throw their tail up out of the water in a huge sweeping arch. It happened so fast that our naturalists were only able to get a few photos, mostly of the giant splash!

Below are some of the photos from the tour taken by our marine naturalists Cheyenne Brewster and Janine Van Der Linden.

BCX1057 Calf 2018, Olympus. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

BCX1856 Honu. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

When you’ve spent enough time with the whales you can ID them with very little. You get familiar with all their little marks and scars, so even a photo like this can provide enough information to get an ID. If you look closely along the bottom left side of this whale’s tail, you can see a small black sideways “t” shape in the white. This is one of the markings we look for that tells us this is Honu! Can you see the mark?

September 22nd - Honu and Olympus travelling together

© Vancouver Island Whale Watch 2018-2024. All Rights Reserved.