We were lucky enough to have a whole lot of whales right close to home on September 3rd. There were shore-based reports of orca near neck point that we decided to try and find, and it didn’t take us long. There was a bunch of very noticeable whales in the mix, with three adult males sporting close to, if not fully grown, 6-foot-tall dorsal fins. It was actually two different pods that were travelling together, although not all members of the pod were travelling closely. The first group that was found consisted of 5 orca total as follows:

T037A Volker ♀ (1994)
T037A2 Inky ♂ (2009)
T101 Reef ♀ (≤1969)
T101A Rush ♂ (1993)
T101B Lagoon ♂ (1997)

This first group is the one that sported all of the larger dorsal fins, as the T101 boys are fully grown and quite impressive-looking whales at 30 years old and 26 years old for Rush and Lagoon, respectively. Even with these big boys present, the younger male, Inky fit right in. Even though he is only 14 years old Inky’s dorsal fin seems pretty close in size with the other males. Volker and Reef themselves are quite large orca, especially for being female. It doesn’t surprise us that these two produce big offspring.

The other two members of the T037As were off having their own adventures. While approaching the larger group, one of our vessels noticed something else, it was the smaller fins of Crinkle and Spinnaker travelling together, scoping out the shoreline of the Hudson Rock Ecological reserve to find themselves lunch. Unfortunately for them, there was no lunch to be found, and they continued travelling towards Snake Island. Interestingly these two didn’t go to join up with their Mom and Brother who were still with the T101s, they instead found a couple of other friends to spend the rest of their day with. These two were two members of the T137s who had been also travelling away from their families: Jack and Wright. These four animals formed their own mismatched pod and continued travelling along the outside of Gabriola Island. Here’s the info for this new group:

T037A3 Spinnaker ♂ (2013)
T037A4 Crinkle ♀ (2015)
T137A Jack ♂ (2002)
T137D Wright ♀ (2012)

After spending some time with this interesting group, we left them behind and continued to Stinky Rock where we ended up finding both Harbour Seals and Steller Sea Lions hauled out on the rocks. The Sea Lions are some of our favourites as they have very vibrant personalities. Usually when we are watching them there are several fights which break out, and they are constantly yelling back and forth at each other.

The Harbour Seals are much less active on the rocks, usually sitting in silence but still keeping a keen eye out for both the potential orca trying to sneak up on them, but also on us as we watch them from the boats.

The plan at this point was to return to the harbour, but the whales has a slightly different idea for one of our boats and turned up directly in their path, so they got a final look at the T101s. T037A and T037A2 who were southbound in Northumberland Channel, between Vancouver Island and Gabriola Island. We ended up leaving them having a hard time deciding between taking False Narrows or Dodd Narrows.

It was a special day getting to see all these orca so nice and close to home, and being able to see the interesting combinations of whales that formed throughout our time with them. The Naturalists onboard Val Watson, Aly Kohlman, and Des Poier captured some amazing photos during these encounters which you can view below!

September 3, 2023, 10:30 - A Whole Lot of Whales Near Nanaimo

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