June 24, 2023 - Orca all day long!

When we left the Nanaimo Harbour the morning of the 24th we were lucky enough that there were already reports of whales in the area! We had all three of our vessels head out into the Strait of Georgia where we found two pods of orca travelling together: The T046Bs (-B1s) and the T085s! The 9 whales present were:

T046B Raksha ♀ (1988)
T046B2 Akela ♀ (2008)
T046B3 Sedna ♀ (2011)
T046B4 Quiver ♀ (2013)
T046B6 Sol ♀ (2019)
T046B7 (2023)

T085 Eve ♀ (~1977)
T085B Ali ♂ (1995)
T085D Findlay (2014)

Since there were some waves out in the strait today we got some really good looks at the whales. When they travel through the waves they will sometimes have to put more of their bodies out of the water in order to get clear of the spray created by the waves. The troughs of the waves will also reveal more of the whales than would normally be visible if the conditions were flat calm. Today these whales were just travelling, headed north in the Strait. When watching wild whales, you never really know what you are going to get while glimpsing into the whales’ lives for an hour, but travelling is very common. Something that was interesting about today’s whales is that in the midst of their travelling, they also seemed to sleep. Sleeping for whales is a little bit different than for humans since they have to think about breathing and flex their muscles to open their blowholes to take the air in! If they turned all their brain off at once, our whales would actually suffocate. So instead, they only rest one side of their brain at a time, letting the other half remain alert and scanning for danger, as well as controlling their breathing.

After getting some great looks at these whales, our time with them was up, and we continued to see other wildlife. This wildlife included our massive Steller Sea Lions, some little Harbour Seals, Bald Eagles, and the Cormorants along the Gabriola Bluffs.

After returning to the harbour and with a short break between it was time for round 2! The afternoon tour left with two of our vessels and this time headed south into the Southern Gulf Islands. We travelled through Stuart Channel, then Trincomali, all the way down to the South end of Saltspring Island where we found the T123s travelling south.

Again, you never know what you’re going to get when watching whales, but travelling is the most common behaviour, and that’s also what the T123s were doing as we watched them today! This pod consists of 4 members, matriarch Sidney travelling with her 3 kids:

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

While they were travelling the youngest, Darcy, sped up a little bit and was moving with most of her body out of the water in a behaviour known as porpoising! This fast travel usually is too quick unless the naturalist is super lucky and fast with their camera. Today we weren’t quite fast enough! For the rest of the time they were being quite photogenic in their travels, so the onboard naturalists captured some great photographs below.

After our time spent with the T123s we also got to see Seals, Sea Lions, and more on the journey home!

Overall it was an amazing day both morning and afternoon filled with all sorts of amazing wildlife and whales.

The photos from today were captured by Naturalists Aly Kohlman, Carmen Murphy, and Vanessa Vereshahen.