Pun of the Day: “Do you know what firemen often add to their soup?”
Answer: They add firecrackers.
(Pun of the day courtesy of Marine Naturalist Cheyenne Brewster)

It was another beautiful fall day as we departed the Nanaimo harbour, our staff eager to see who was waiting for us out on the water. We’ve been spending a lot of time just outside the harbour with the humpback soup, so we decided to spread the fleet out and search some other areas today. We still found the soup, it just happened to be in a different spot today! With 3 boats in 3 places, our groups all saw the same whales, just at different times.
Here are the names of all our whales today, as well as links to their Happy Whale sightings page if you’d like to see where they’ve been sighted over the years.
Strike BCX1675 , Ocular BCX1705, Tempest BCX0837, Quadrata BCZuk2021#1, Omega BCX1416 calf 2020, Neowise BCY0160 calf 2020, Slice BCX1057 Calf 2021, Sherwina BCY0961, Zephyr BCZ0414, Zorro BCX0380

We found Strike doing her big circle just off Yellowpoint, south of Dodd Narrows. Strike has been here for multiple weeks now, doing her solo circles between Yellowpoint and Ruxton Pass. Strike became a confirmed female last year when she returned from Mexico to the Salish Sea with a calf in tow. Some of our staff are suspicious that she might be pregnant, unfortunately, we will have to wait for her to return next year before our suspicions can be confirmed.

The main soup today was located off of Valdez Island, with 7 humpbacks hanging out in the area.
Ocular and Tempest were busy feeding and travelling a bit south of Thrasher. This pair showed off a bit with a cartwheel and a single breach, though in true fashion the cameras just weren’t quick enough! Though our naturalist did get some beautiful splash photos!

Sherwina was nearby as well, but seemed to be doing her own thing, feeding and travelling solo to our eyes.

Neowise and Slice, 2 youngsters, were a bit further south still, closer to the midpoint of Valdez Island. This pair was also doing the usual humpback fall activities of travelling and feeding, diving deep and showing off their beautiful tails.

The third pair of whales wasn’t too far away, Zephyr and Zorro were a bit further into the Strait, diving and feeding. Zephyr is the firstborn calf of Divot, and Zorro is a whale we don’t often see but is very easy to ID given that he is missing almost the entire left side of his tail!

While all 7 of these whales were in pairs, with Sherwina being the solo one, and spread out over a bit of a distance, these whales could have still been hanging out and travelling together. Humpbacks make a range of vocalizations, with some of those notes being too low for human ears to register. These sounds can travel hundreds of miles underwater, so having a casual conversation over a few kilometers is no big deal for humpbacks.

We decided to check our hot spot out of Nanaimo harbour, just to see who was around, and we found Quadrata and Omega! They were right along the Duke Point ferry line.

It’s great to see so many whales returning to our area, and we can’t wait to see who shows up next!
Enjoy the photos from the tours taken by marine naturalists Aly Kohlman, Janine Van Der Linden, and Vanessa Vereschahen.