We started our day with a few reports of humpbacks close to home, so we had some choices to make! We decided to head south to a report of a lot of whales! They certainly didn’t let us down! We found several groups of whales all hanging out together, but there was a cluster of 6 whales all very close, with another group of 2 a bit further north, and one lone whale hanging out in the islands. If you’re read our previous blogs, you probably already have a guess as to who it might be!

Here is the list of all the whales we encountered during the tour. The links take you to Happy Whale where you can follow your favorite whales and get notified when people have reported sightings for them!
keep reading to see who they were hanging out with and what they were up to during the trip!
Sherwina BCY0961 | Split Fluke BCX1068 | Bond BCX1640 | Yogi BCY0409 | Divot BCX1057 | Zephyr BCZ0414 | Nuage BCX1606 | Trooper BCX1854 | Strike BCX 1675 | Anvil BCZ01410 and her 2022 calf | and 2 unknown whales!

Enjoy the photos from the tour taken by marine naturalist Janine Van Der Linden and Vanessa Vereschahen.

Sherwina and Bond. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

One of our trios, today consisted of Bond, Sherwina, and Split Fluke. Sherwina was first sighted in 2017 in California and seemed to spend 2017 and 2018 off California before finding the Salish Sea in 2019. Sherwina has returned to our waters from Hawaii every summer since. Split Fluke, one of Sherwina’s friends today, is a Mexico humpback, travelling to the Salish Sea every summer since 2006! Her mom Heather brought Split Fluke to our waters as a calf. She is a mom herself, returning to our waters in 2017 with her first calf Valiant, and again in 2019 with her second, Halfpipe. The third whale in this trio was Bond, a whale we’ve seen a hand full of times but don’t know much about. Bond first appeared in the Salish Sea in 2014 and travelled to Hawaii in the winter, but we aren’t sure if they are male or female yet. The waters were so calm today it’s hard to tell where the sea ends and sky begins!

Split Fluke. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen

Split Fluke is named for the large split in her fluke! This may seem like a not so creative name, but when it comes to naming whales a simple name is often better. It makes them easier to ID on the water, so having a name based on a scar or marking makes it easy to remember who they are in the future.

One pair today was Yogi and Divot. Yogi is someone we don’t see very often, but they are a frequent traveler in the Salish Sea. Yogi has been returning to our waters since 2002 and spends their winters in Hawaii. While most of their sightings are in the Salish Sea Yogi has made at least one trip all the way up to the shores of Gil Island which is far north near Prince Rupert!
Divot was Yogi’s travel companion today. Divot is a well known whale to the area and has been returning here since 2008. She’s had 3 calves since then, Zephyr in 2011, on in 2014, Olympus in 2018, and another just last year. Divot also spends her winters in Hawaii. Maybe Yogi and Divot are discussing migration plans before they head out in just a few short weeks!

A beautiful rainblow from Divot! Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

The next group of whales was another trio, not too far away. This group consisted of Nuage, Trooper, and Zephyr. It’s not unusual to see 2 related humpbacks in the same area, as the whales usually return to the same feeding areas they were shown by mom. Seeing Zephyr so close to her mom however is still very cool! We don’t know much about humpback whales social behaviour once the calves separate from their moms, but being such intelligent animals it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume they keep in touch. Zephyr has never been matched to a breeding ground, but it’s highly likely they return to Hawaii, just like mom. Along with Zephyr was Nuage, who is also known as Beak. Beak made their first appearance in the Salish Sea in 2014 with their mom Big Momma! Like Zephyr Beak hasn’t been matched to a breeding ground but likely goes to Hawaii, as that is where Big Momma spends their winter. The third whale in this group is also a Hawaii whale and goes by the name Trooper. Trooped has only been coming to the Salish Sea since 2018 and sometime during the summer of 2018 Trooper was struck by a boat in Howe Sound. Thankfully Trooper pulled through and healed up nicely. The large gash behind their dorsal makes them very easy to ID.

Anvils calf (front) and Anvil (back). Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

Our last group of whales was a mom and calf pair, Anvil and her 2022 calf were sleepily cruising around and foraging in the calm waters. Our naturalist even managed to get a corner photo of the calves tail! It’s always important to try and get that calves tail photo so we can ID them when they return in the future. It might only be a corner, but it can be enough to match to if we get a full fluke in the future. Anvil was also side fluking for us, so we got a matching photo of mom today. Anvil’s tail is almost pure white with some dark scratch marks near the base of her tail. The calf looks like it will also have very white tail, but we can’t say for sure until next year. Calves tails will darken or lighten a lot over their first winter so we will be keeping an eye out for them next year to compare!

Anvils calf. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

We had 2 humpbacks make a single appearance during the tour and we only managed to get top of the fluke photos. This makes it much harder to ID them, though we haven’t given up. Using photoshop we can flip the photos and try to line up the trailing edge to find a match. We won’t have markings to go off, but this won’t be the first time we’ve had to match up trailing edges to find our match.

Of course we had to stop in and check on Strike, she’s still doing her big loops inside the islands between Yellow Point and Ruxton pass.

The California sea lions have returned to the logs near Harmac. We’re excited to be able to stop and see them again. We definitely missed them over the summer and are happy to see so many big boys returning,

September 27th - Whales whale whales

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