It’s always a great time to see any whale while out exploring the Salish Sea, but this morning we were absolutely spoiled and ended up finding 7 different humpback whales during our tour! These whales weren’t all travelling together, instead, we ended up finding 3 different pairs of humpbacks and one solo traveler.

The first one we came across during the tour was the loner. We didn’t manage to get any clear tail photos to go along with this whale since they were doing shallow feeding dives. One of the best ways to tell if they are feeding is by seeing what direction they surface with each dive. If it’s completely random and hard to follow, that likely means that they are doing lots of direction changes under the water as they lunge through the schools of Krill or small fish under the water. Since this makes the whales a bit harder to watch we continued on, leaving this whale to their food and instead came across our first pair of whales.

These two whales were easy to ID, it was Tempest (BCX0837) and Split Fin (BCZ0298)! These two are likely fully grown animals, with Tempest being a large female who was first recorded with a calf in 2008, She is estimated to be at least 20 years old based on when humpbacks typically start having calves. Split Fin we know his exact age (17), since we know he was born in 2006 to a famous local whale: Big Mama! Split Fin has been seen returning to the same area since 2006 and has never been recorded with a calf, therefore the estimate is that he is in fact a he. These two were also diving pretty deeply since they were both under the water for about ten minutes at a time. Interestingly, when whales travel together like this they will have synchronized activity, meaning when one dives the other will at the same time, and they will surface at the same time as well.

After enjoying watching them lift their tails high to go for these deep dives, we left them to it and moved on to the next set of whales. This time it was two whales who are related to each other: Dalmatian (BCY0994) and Neowise (BCY0160 calf 2020)! These two are siblings, Dalmatian being born in 2015 and Neowise born in 2020. These two were also closely associating with each other, exhibiting synchronized behaviour as they seemed to be asleep at the surface. Resting is just as important as feeding for our whales, just as it’s important for us humans! Getting to see a whale sleeping means a couple of things: you get lots of time at the surface, but they don’t do much activity while they are there. These two were “logging” at the surface. This behaviour is named for the humpbacks’ resemblance to logs as they sit barely visible just below the surface of the water.

The final pair of humpbacks seen today was Nike (BCX1377) travelling with Corona/Phi (BCX1416). Interestingly, this is another Male/Female combo, with Nike being a known male thanks to photos of his underside and Corona has brought back multiple calves to the Salish Sea confirming that she is female. We don’t really know why the humpbacks seem to like travelling in pairs while they are here, hopefully with more research, we will find out! It’s becoming more and more common as time goes on to see them like this.

During this trip, we not only saw all these lovely humpback whales but were also able to find some Harbour Seals and Steller Sea Lions lounging on Stinky Rocks before it was time to return to the Harbour. Photos of all the whales and other wildlife taken by the onboard marine naturalists Cheyenne Brewster and Vanessa Vereschehen can be enjoyed below!

August 30, 2023, 10:30 - Humpback Soup with Dalmatian, Neowise, Nike, Tempest, Split Fin, Corona, and an unknown!

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