November 16, 2023 - Spending time with the T018s and T035As close to home

It was such a beautiful day as our vessel Kula left the dock. We had very high hopes with plenty of sunshine and not much wind in the forecast today. Our hopes got even higher when we got a report of a pod of orca seen near the Southern side of Gabriola Island. We decided to take the inside passageways through Dodd Narrows, and heading towards Gabriola Pass when we saw them, blows!

Accompanying those blows were the tall black dorsal fins that are unique to the orca in the area. There was a mix between the tall fins of the adult males and the smaller ones of the females and juveniles in the group. Today the whales made it easy, since there were a couple of very distinct dorsal fins, letting us identify the T018s and T035As very quickly! The whales present today were:

T018 Esperanza (≤1955)
T019 Nootka (≤1965)
T019B Galiano (1995)
T019C Spouter (2001)

T035A Lester ♀ (1998)
T035A1 Opal ♀ (2010)
T035A2 Topaz (2013)
T035A3 Garnet (2018)
T035A4 ♂ (2022)

Getting to see all the whales together was an amazing sight, with all 9 whales seeming to be enjoying each other’s company. We saw lots of socializing behaviour, with spy hopping, tail slaps, and travelling close together. It seems that maybe this was a sort of goodbye since after this the group split into their respective pods and the T018s continued through False Narrows while the T035As headed off in the other direction. We stayed with the T018s until it was too shallow for us to continue in our vessel and headed out to find other wildlife. Along the way, we were surprised to find the T035As again! It seems that after they left the T018s heading south, they just did a loop around a small island and started heading north again, pointing towards Dodd Narrows.

We ended up having some great looks at them this time, but even with a short amount of time between our last sighting of them and now their behaviour had changed quite a bit. Instead of the fast-paced surface activity that we saw from them before, it seemed like they were almost sleeping now. Slow surfaces, lots of time at the surface, and even logging. The good thing about seeing different behaviour is that it gives you a better idea of what normal life is like for these iconic animals. They aren’t always jumping out of the water or being super active, their times of rest are just as important. It’s also important for us to know the different behaviours since they can have different consequences for the whales, as a sleeping whale is a lot less visible than a breaching one. If you know how to look for each activity type, you are less likely to not see them and potentially get too close, too fast.

After getting some amazing views of these sleepy whales we continued to Northumberland Channel, stopping to see the haul out of Sea Lions that like to lay on the logs there. It’s mostly California Sea Lions there, with the odd Steller in the mix.

In between these Sea Lion and our home port, you’ll never guess what we found. It was the T018s again! Now usually we don’t spend so much of the tour with the whales themselves, but in this special case, we didn’t have much choice since they were right in the way! So we spent a little bit more time with these 4 before they continued north into the Strait of Georgia.

It was finally time for us to return to the harbour, and lucky for us there weren’t any more whales in the way, since the sun was starting to set behind the mountains. It was an amazing trip, with some amazing photos of it taken by the naturalist onboard, Vanessa Vereschahen. All the photos are below for you to enjoy!

A Bald Eagle watching us from the marker.

Look at how beautiful this bald eagle is.

T035A3 Garnet doing a large arch in preparation for a dive.

T019B Galiano surfacing in Pylades Channel.

One of the youngsters swimming on their side.

T018 Esperanza is very scarred up! She;s the oldest known orca in this population.

T019B Galiano! Getting a closer look (and remember this is taken with a large lens and cropped) you can see the water flowing off hi dorsal fin as well as all his scars.

Somebody was putting their tail out of the water!

T035A3 Garnet doing a tail slap!

T035A1 Opal has a very wide base to their dorsal fin.

T035A Lester surfacing. You can see the very distinct notches in her dorsal fin.

One of the youngest members of the pod splashing their mom, T035A Lester.

T019B Galiano travelling just in front of his grandmother, T018 Esperanza.

A common loon was swimming nearby the whales.

T019B Galiano.

Family Photo! Mother, T019 Nootka is the smallest fin with T019C Spouter directly beside her, and T019B Galiano just going under the surface in behind.

T019B Galiano is a fan favourite thanks to this massive dorsal fin!

T019C Spouter surfacing in front of T019 Nootka.

A pair of western grebes were also nearby!

The youngest of the T035As, T035A4! Born in 2022.

You can see from this photo that they were travelling a bit spread out!

This interesting angle of T035A1 Opal shows a slight bend to the dorsal fin.

A very lazy California Sea Lion hauled out near Harmac Pulp Mill

T019B Galiano has a very distinct lean to his dorsal fin, making him easy to ID from every angle.

T019B Galiano coming towards us as he dives.

T019B Galiano in front of Snake Island and the Coastal Mountains.