The long weekend brought plenty of people wanting to come out and experience the whales in the wild with us, so we not only had three boats that departed Nanaimo at noon, but we had a special sunset tour that left at 5!

In the morning tour, all of our boats left the Nanaimo harbour and spread out across the Southern Gulf Islands and into the Strait of Georgia to find some whales! There was a report of a humpback near Active Pass so we started to head that way. While traveling towards this whale, we found another along the way! This humpback whale was quickly IDed as one of our favourites, BCZ0414 Zephyr! Even though she wasn’t putting her tail very high out of the water as she die, it was enough to see the striking white underside. She has very distinct, bold patterns that make identifying her a breeze!

Zephyr is a very interesting whale, and one we love to talk about since she had her first calf when she was only 8 years old! She has since had another, which is pretty impressive for a 13 year old humpback! We haven’t confirmed a relighting of either of her calves yet, but matching calves across the years can be difficult since they don’t typically show off their tail in the first year unless it’s through surface activity. Since the underside of the tail is the easiest way to ID humpback whales, if we don’t know what it looks like as a calf, sometimes we don’t recognize them years down the line.

Our afternoon tour not only saw Zephyr, but also a ton of wildlife, including seals, sea lions, and even a Bald Eagle!

Soon all three of our boats were back in Nanaimo, and it was time for round 2! The sunset tour left, and instead of heading back to Porlier Pass where we had seen Zephyr earlier, we headed across to the Sunshine Coast where a Vancouver-based company had found 3 humpback whales! Since we all share sightings, it helps everyone to increase their success rate! It’s a win-win! Upon arriving we saw the three whales were in two different groups, with a pair travelling together, and then one off by itself not too far away from the other two. They were again not showing off much of their tails, so IDing them was a little difficult. One decided to finally give us a peak underneath their flukes and we were able to ID it as KEY0042, a whale new this year to the Keta Catalogue!

One other we were able to match was BCX1602 Lorax! We matched Lorax based on her dorsal fin, although it took us a little bit longer than the fluke. The final humpback we also only got a couple of dorsal shots of, but they didn’t provide us with any answers yet. So for now, they will remain a mystery! We will be sure to update it here once we know who it is!

May 21, 2023 - Afternoon tour with Zephyr and a sunset tour with KEY0042, Lorax and an unknown!

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