June 16, 2023 10:30 - A new T-party appears

Today we had two boats leaving the Nanaimo Harbour this morning, Kula and Cascadia! We were lucky enough to already have a destination as we left the dock, a pod of orca that were travelling north a few miles off of Entrance Island!

As we approached this group, there were more animals present than what we would expect from a single pod, so ID mode was ON! Our expert naturalists grabbed their cameras and started shooting! The best way to get IDs for the orca is through photos so you can look longer at them and compare them directly to the DFO Photo ID guide! Although there are changes to the orca all the time, usually the guide does a good job of letting you know who we are looking at. Today one group was particularly easy to ID, since it had one of the most iconic male orca on the Salish Sea, Stanley! We also got photos of Sidney, confirming the T123s. After a few more photos were snapped, we figured out the other whales were the T046B1s and T046C2! It was a T-party! All the orca present today were:

T046B1 Tread ♀ (2003)
T046B1A Tsakani ♀ (2015)
T046B1C (2022)

T046C2 Sam ♀ (1994)

T123 Sidney ♀ (~1985)
T123A Stanley ♂ (2000)
T123C Lucky ♀ (2012)
T123D Darcy ♀ (2018)

Where we were with the whales was a little bit wavy, which usually makes for great viewing of the animals! to get through the waves the orca tend to put more of their bodies out of the water which helps make travelling more efficient. We got some amazing looks at these animals as they made their way through the water on a mission to wherever it was they were going.

After our time with the orca was up, we headed out to find some more wildlife. Our search took us down Valdes Island to Stinky Rock where there is a Sea Lion haul out. Today we were lucky enough to see a Large Male Steller Sea Lion, who was doing some very interesting behaviour. He was charging the other sea lions and looked to be asserting his dominance on the rocky shore. Not only did we see the sea lions along this rocky outcrop. We also got to see a bald eagle spending some time on the rocks.

Finally, after watching our various wildlife we found ourselves back in the Nanaimo Harbour once more. It was an amazing morning on the water!

Photos taken by Marine Naturalist Vanessa Vereschahen.