September 4, 2023, 10:30 - Humpback Mania and the T038 siblings

We left the harbour on Sept 4th and were going off towards a report of Orca that were travelling far into Howe Sound, on the way there, we ended up finding something else; a whole lot of humpback whales! The two boats that were travelling ended up finding two different groups of whales at about the same time. The first ones were Kelpie (KEZ0009), Graphite (BCX1210 calf 2019), Hendrix (BCY1278) travelling closely together, these three seemed like they might have been socializing, as they were spending a lot of time at the surface together, and couldn’t have been more than a pectoral fin length away from each other each time they came up for a breath. They were very cooperative with their tails as well, lifting them high out of the air with each dive, making it very easy to quickly determine who they were.

While one boat was getting amazing looks at these three, the other boat was trapped with another group of whales which included Two Spot (BCZ0432), BCX1965, Niagara (BCY0057), Raccoon (BCX1233), KEY0042 and Crackle (BCX0523 calf 2019).

These whales were all over the place, doing all sorts of behaviours, but the most noticeable was Two Spot, who came over and gave the boat an up-close and personal inspection. there was also some pec slapping and tail flicking going on, with these whales basically swimming right on top of each other. Looking through the photos after the fact more and more humpbacks started to appear, bringing the number up from what they originally thought while they were with the humpbacks themselves.

While watching their respective whales something caught their eye, a distant pair of humpbacks had started breaching! Both boats decided to head that way, and the IDs of the whales became known pretty quickly, as it was one who was super unique, and the other a commonly sighted whale in the area: it was Valiant (BCX1773), Yogi (BCY0409)! These two were synchronized in their movement, breaching at the same time, diving at the same time, and slapping their pectoral fins at each other. It's amazing when they start to jump out of the water like this since it takes a huge amount of energy.

They continued on like this for quite a while, and one more little whale made an appearance in the distance while we were watching them Neowise (BCY0160 calf 2020)! Neowise was swimming normally, while Yogi and Valiant continued to jump out of the water. They probably jumped out at least 15 times and lucky we were fast with the camera and got some amazing photos that you can view below.

After our time with the humpbacks came to a close we started the trip back to Nanaimo but were stopped once more by another whale sighting: this time it was orca! There were two whales travelling together, a set of siblings that had been travelling away from the rest of their pod. It was:

T038C Borrowman (2008)
and
T038E Hocker (2017)

We didn’t have much time left on the trip to spend with these two, but we did get to see them travelling south past Pipers Lagoon and Five Finger Islands. These two were switching between travelling right side by side to spreading out as they moved. These two tend to be slightly unpredictable when we see them, but they were pretty easy to track as we watched them today. After leaving them we returned to the Harbour, happy with all the amazing encounters. The onboard naturalists Vanessa Vereschehen and Val Watson got lots of great photos from the day which you can view below.

Graphite preparing to dive. Photo by Val Watson.

The bottom side of Hendrix’s tail. Photo by Val Watson.

Hendrix, Graphite, and Kelpie surfacing together. Photo by Val Watson.

Kelpie has many scars on her dorsal surface from a past skin condition. Photo by Val Watson.

Kelpie lifting her fluke to dive. Photo by Val Watson.

Hendrix’s tail. Photo by Val Watson.

Graphite’s Tail. Photo by Val Watson.

Kelpies Tail. Photo by Val Watson.

Valiant Breaching in the distance. Photo by Val Watson.

Lovely Breach from Valiant. Photo by Val Watson.

Yogi breaching into a big chin slap! Photo by Val Watson.

Valiant breaching backwards. Photo by Val Watson.

Valiant doing a chin slap. Photo by Val Watson.

A huge chin slap from Valiant. Photo by Val Watson.

Yogi doing a mini-breach. Photo by Val Watson.

Yogi twisting mid-air during his breach. Photo by Val Watson.

Yogi giving a big pectoral slap. Photo by Val Watson.

Valiant Breaching. Photo by Val Watson.

A beautiful breach from Valiant. Photo by Val Watson.

Valiant launching himself out of the water. Photo by Val Watson.

A huge breach from Valiant. Photo by Val Watson.

Yogi slapping his pectoral fin as Valiant prepares to dive. Photo by Val Watson.

Kelpie lifting their tail in front of Graphite. Photo by Val Watson.

Racoon lifting her tail out of the water to dive. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Two Spot’s dorsal fin. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

One of our whales rolled, lifting half of their fluke out of the water. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

A whole wack of humpbacks! There is KEY0042 with half their tail showing. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

The Rostrum of Two Spot lifted out of the water. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Up close and personal with one of the whales. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Two Spot has markings on his Pectoral Fins that remind us of a face. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

The underside of Prowlers tail flukes.Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

KEY0042 showing off their tail. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

A pectoral fins rises amongst the humpback party. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Two Spot’s white tail fluke behind another’s rostrum. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Crinckles dorsal fin. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

KEY0042 swishing their tail neat the boat. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

KEY0042’s tail sideways. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Yogi breaching in the distance. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Yogi breaching out of the water. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Hendrix lifts their tail beside Kelpies dorsal fin. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

A couple of Cormorants on the rocks. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Harbour Seals Hauled out on Seal Rock. Photo by Val Watson.

A Harbour Seal seems to stick its tongue out at us. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

You can see Borrowman’s white patch just above the water. Photo by Val Watson.

Borrowman and Hocker. Photo by Val Watson.

Hocker surfacing as Borrowman dives. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Borrowman not only has a distinct white mark on one side, but also a notch out of the dorsal fin which helps on the other side, like here. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Hocker and Borrowman. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Hocker Surfacing with Hudson Rocks in the background. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Back at the dock a juvenile gull tries to get a free meal from mom. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Quite the sight when the gulls try and eat a starfish! Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.