Today was an extra lucky day - today was a Double Species day! What does that mean? It means we saw both of our commonly seen species of whales (Orca and Humpbacks) in one trip. This isn’t very common as both species have to be fairly close to our home port in order for us to have enough time to see them, so it is always extra exciting when we are able to do just that!

We were able to relocate the same pair of orca we had seen on our earlier trip, half of the T018 pod:

T019 Nootka ♀ (≤1965)
T019B Galiano ♂ (1995)

These two were continuing their journey northbound. When we saw them this afternoon they were off of North Nanaimo. They seemed to be on a mission as they were travelling quite fast and had covered a fair bit of ground between our two sightings today. After we departed from these two we turned out sights towards the Strait of Georgia where we hoped to locate a humpback whale. Today we were able to find not one, but EIGHT different humpbacks!

These eight humpbacks were ID’d as the following:

Tempest (BCX0837), Split Fin (BCZ0298), Yogi (BCY0409), Harpy (BCY0458 calf 2020), Valiant (BCX1773), Graphite (BCX1210 calf 2019), Hendrix (BCY1278) and 1 Unknown!

Tempest was travelling with Split Fin, Harpy, Valiant, and Yogi were hanging out together, Graphite was travelling solo, and Hendrix was travelling with an Unknown friend. It used to be believed that most humpbacks were solitary, or that they usually travelled by themselves. We have noticed as the humpback population has continued to grow that it is becoming very uncommon to see humpbacks all by themselves now. While Graphite did not have a friend travelling close by, it is highly probable he may have been talking to other whales nearby under water.

All of our humpbacks are busily eating and packing on as much weight as they can. Our humpbacks will begin their giant migrations in the next few months. Our humpbacks usually migrate to one of these two breeding grounds: Hawaii (including Yogi and Split Fin) or Mexico (including Valiant and Tempest). Typically humpbacks will migrate to whichever breeding ground their mother travels to, but every once in a while we find whales that break this rule and go to the other breeding ground. We have also seen a couple interesting individuals that have been spotted at both the Hawaiian and Mexican breeding grounds!

After leaving our humpbacks we continued adventuring in the Strait. We located a giant variety of species all hanging out on the White Islets. Here we saw Harbour seals sunbathing, Steller sea lions grumbling and fishing, Black oystercatchers snoozing, as well as many Gulls chatting away.

All in all this was a fin-tastic trip full of tons of whales! Please enjoy the photos below taken by Marine Naturalists Aly Kohlman and Val Watson.

August 31, 2023, 3:30 - T019 and T019B continue north plus a bunch of Humpbacks!

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