This morning, our open boats Cascadia and Keta headed south through the Gulf Islands to start our search for the day. We ended up just east of Porlier Pass, where we had a lovely encounter with two well-known Humpbacks in our area- BCY0195 Fader and BCY0893 Windy. Both of these Humpbacks are part of the Hawaii population that visits our waters, enjoying the warm shallows waters there before heading to our colder region. These cold waters are perfect for the humpbacks to feed. Temperature is one of the things that affect oxygen saturation levels in the water, meaning the colder it is, the more oxygen can be dissolved in the water. Since a lot of organisms use oxygen higher levels typically mean high biodiversity and productivity. This high productivity is actually why our humpbacks spend their summers here, its all for the food.

The entire time they are up here they will be feeding and building their fat reserves. When they return to the warmer Hawaiian waters they will only feed very opportunistically, but most of their energy comes from metabolizing their fat stores. Especially for Windy, who is a known male through most photos of his genital region and through biopsy samples. Males down in the breeding grounds will expend a ton of energy through surface activities as they show off their fitness and compete for the ladies.

Did you know that a single breach from an adult humpback whale is about equivalent to a human running an entire marathon? That’s why when they first return surface activity is less common, since they just burned through all their fat over the winter and have to build it back up again to prepare for next year.

Every day a humpback whale consumes up to 1.5 tons of food to help build their reserves. That’s millions of the tiny animals that are on the menu for our humpbacks!

Today feeding is exactly what we think these two were doing. When we first arrived these two whales were travelling separately doing the deeper feeding dives, but then over time they got closer together and may have been interacting! Fader was even doing what was close to a tail flick a few times as they socialized.

All the photos from the day were taken by our onboard naturalists Aly Kohlman and Vanessa Vereschahen and can be enjoyed below!