When we left Nanaimo harbour on the afternoon of August 29th we had a new lead to investigate. There were some shore-based reports given to us of a couple of orca travelling south off of Nanoose Bay, so of course we decided to try our luck at finding these whales!

When searching for whales there is a slight amount of luck that comes into play, since the marine mammals of the ocean spent a large amount of their lives travelling beneath the waves where we just can’t see them! The amount of time spent under the surface depends slightly on the species of whale and what they are up to at a given moment. Humpback whales when feeding, for example, can hold their breath for up to 45 minutes at a time and are capable of diving up to 700 feet deep if they really want to. The orca we were in search of don’t have as impressive dive capabilities, with their dives not lasting more than 20 minutes, usually less. When traveling they typically will do a series of breathing surfaces every 3-5 minutes, or sometimes more frequently if they are travelling faster and therefore metabolizing their oxygen more quickly.

Today when we caught up with these orca they were travelling along the shore of Nanoose, giving us plenty of looks at the surface! Even though the reports had mentioned there only being two whales present, we were surprised to see three orca travelling together! It was a familiar sight for two of them, since they are members of one of our favourite pods: the T018s! During this time the T018s had split into two groups and were travelling fully separate from each other. Today We had T018 herself, Esperanza travelling with Grandson T019C Spouter. They also had another whale with them: T077C Neftali! That makes the three whales present:

Getting to see the two members of the T018s is always exciting since it’s estimated that at 68 years old Esperanza is the oldest member of the Transient Orca Population! Since their life spans could potentially be up to 100 years old, hopefully, Esperanza will be seen in these waters for many more years to come. Spouter is also interesting in his own right since he has a very interesting-looking dorsal fin. It’s estimated that he is now fully grown since he is 22 years old, but his dorsal has been changing over the last few years. He has a very wavy dorsal fin now, which is obvious when you look at the photos of him today. The final orca present, Neftali, has been making the rounds and being seen with a few different groups throughout the year. He used to consistently travel with his sister away from the rest of their pod, but earlier in the year she ditched him (or maybe he ditched her?) and she has been seen travelling with the T075Bs. The last time we saw Neftali he was travelling with another loner whale: T065A5 Indy! Since Orca are super social critters it’s very common to see “lone whales” travelling with each other on and off, even if they don’t stick with the same ones for long periods of time. Larger gatherings of animals in T-parties might be a good time for the lone animals to pick their next buddies and carry on with them once the party breaks up.

After leaving the orca to their travels, we decided to head out and see if we could find ourselves a humpback whale as well to make this a double species day! As mentioned earlier, sometimes the humpbacks can be hard to find as they can be under the water for extended periods of time, but they have the benefit of being about twice as large as our orca, and therefore being able to be spotted from greater distances.

This was the case when we saw the tell-tale sign of a humpback in the distance, a blow! When they surface after a dive this blow is especially visible. When we got closer, we recognized the dorsal fin right away, it was our local troublemaker, Chi (BCZ0414 calf 2021)! Chi has been known for approaching boats this year, so we make sure to pay extra attention when we know it’s him, as being close to a running boat can be bad for the whales. This is why we watch them at specific distances and do our best to not have close encounters. Of course, the whales don’t know about these regulations and sometimes they break them and come closer to us than the regulations allow! Luckily, there are procedures in place to follow when this happens and it’s a pretty easy one, you just turn your engines off and hope the whale gets bored of you and leaves to do their own thing eventually. Today when Chi approached we didn’t have to wait too long, it was a short curious look before he continued to do what we assume were feeding dives due to the long duration of them.

After spending some time with Chi, we also got to see some adorable Harbour Seals sunning themselves on the rocky shores of Snake Island before we had to return to harbour.

It was an amazing trip! All the best photos from the various encounters captured by the Naturalists onboard, Des Poier and Vanessa Vereschehen, can be viewed below!

August 29, 2023, 3:30 - Half the T018s travelling with Neftali, as well as Humpback Chi

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