What a whale of a day! We always tell our guests that September and October is the best time of year to whale watch, and today was one of those days that really showed it! In the morning, our crew set off on search mode. Our semi-covered vessel and the open boat split up, to better our chances of finding animals. While Kula headed over to the Sunshine Coast, Keta headed out towards Entrance Island. It was here that we found our first (but definitely not last!) humpbacks of the day, Bullet (BCX1658) and a friend! We’ve seen humpbacks a lot around Entrance Island this year, leading us to believe there must be good food in the area! We hung out with these two and got some great pictures of the two of them travelling together. Meanwhile, across the water, our semi-covered vessel Kula had some luck of their own. They found a pod orca just south of Gibsons. This group included:

T124D Field ♀ (1996)
T124D1 Salish II (2014)
T124D3 (2022)

These guys were hanging out right near the shore, maybe on the hunt for a tasty Harbour Seal! We often find our Orca sweeping the coastlines go the mainland or in the Gulf Islands, constantly on the hunt for a meal. And since these guys have to eat 300-500 lbs of food a day, that means they are on the move a lot! After spending some time with these guys, we left them to continue on our way, heading west up the Sunshine Coast. It wasn’t long before we found more whales, this time a group of humpbacks!

We met up with Twinning (BCX120), Crater (BCX1565), and a third unknown who was travelling with them. When we arrived on scene, it was just Twinning and Crater hanging out, but we were shortly joined by a third, who decided to hang out with our dynamic duo. Deciding to try their luck on the other side of the Strait, Keta left Entrance and headed towards the Halibut Bank area another known Humpback hotspot. While they spotted some excitement on the horizon, when they finally got on scene, the two Humpbacks spotted had calmed down a bit. We quickly figured out it was two well-known whales to us, Split Fluke (BCX068) and Split Fin (BCZ0298). Both animals have very recognizable features, with Split Fluke having - you guessed it - a small split in her fluke. Split fin, however, has a distinct dorsal to him, where his dorsal has 3 points! Both features make identifying by our Naturalists a breeze.

After an already exciting start to the morning, we got a hot tip about another pod heading our way, but this time back across the water. Perfect timing! After saying goodbye to all the Humpbacks both boats headed over to see who we could find. Our open boat located two pods travelling together:

Once our semi-covered vessel was back on our side of the strait they also went over to see the T002Cs and friends. By this point, these whales were quite sleepy and were just bobbing along. That’s okay though - it’s busy work being an orca!

After seeing our humpbacks, orca, and some other wildlife, we returned to home port and did it all over again. In the afternoon we were just as lucky as we were in the morning! We were able to relocate the T002Cs, T059, T059A2, and T059A4, this time travelling near Gabriola Island. These whales were travelling quite quickly as they cruised the Gabriola shoreline, likely looking for dinner. The pods split into two at once point, with one sticking closer to shore and the other further out to sea. Once our time we these whales was up our boats once again split up to try and find some other wildlife. The boats went into the Flattop Islands where there were many Harbour seals hauled out. After that, our semi-covered boat went back out into the Strait of Georgia and headed towards Halibut Bank, a known Humpback hotspot. Today was another great day at Halibut Bank as our semi-covered vessel found 3 humpbacks travelling together. We were quickly able to ID two of these whales as Pingu (BCY1110) and Honu (BCX1856), but their friend was quite tail-shy and refused to fluke while we were on scene. We were however later able to confirm their friend’s ID as Vivaldi (BCX1704) thanks to her unique dorsal plus very bumpy skin.

Our open boat was going to head to Halibut Bank too but they found a surprise along the way - the T059s had broken off from the T002Cs and were now travelling VERY close to some very spooked seals. They circled and circled the seals and did manage to catch one that they promptly split between the 3 family members. By this time it was getting a bit late, so our open boat decided to head to Stinky Rocks by Gabriola Pass to see some sea lions and then turn inside the Southern Gulf islands. There had been a report of a humpback near Dodd Narrows earlier that day and they were hopeful they could relocate it. It seems like their “whale senses” were correct today, as they were able to locate Hydra (BCY1000) feasting near Yellowpoint. There were many bait balls (big balls of fish) visible on the surface of the water here, so it was a perfect buffet for a hungry humpback whale!

All in all, this was a fantastic day with tons of wildlife to see!

Photos taken by Marine Naturalists Val Watson and Cheyenne Brewster.

September 14, 2023 - Countless whales!

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