The day started a little gloomy, lucky for us the rain held off until we were pulling up to the dock at the end of our tour! Sunny days are always appreciated here on the West Coast, but the moody days sure are beautiful. Today we decided to search in the Gulf Islands for whales reported near Dodd narrows northbound.
As none of our whales are tagged or chipped we search just with our eyes, so shore reports are always appreciated. Through the churning rippling currents of Dodd Narrows we went, eyes peeled eager to spot some fins! We searched and searched in Trincomali Channel, we even decided to circle back and do another loop just in case we missed them.
Orca can hold their breath for around 15 minutes and can move at speeds around 50 - 60 km for short bursts, so even when spotted they can be far from that area in a matter of hours. We may have gotten lucky with the rain today, but not with this report. It was time to move on and expand the search area, we continued south taking in the views…
All of a sudden the Captain slowed the boat! What did he spot? It was a white head and tail amongst the green foliage - a telltale sign of our Bald eagles perched in the trees. This trick to spotting them works well for adults - the juveniles on the other hand are a little bit tricky. This is because they will not develop their signature white heads until they are around 5 years old. With a quick pit stop to see the Eagle and use our onboard washroom, we were off again.
This time when the Captain slowed down it was for a fin - and not just any fin! Our naturalist recognized this iconic boy instantly - it was our mascot Chainsaw! His mother Whidbey ll was spotted in the distance while Chainsaw showed off for the camera. The whales we saw today were:

Male orcas stay with their mothers their entire lives, we have a few exceptions to this rule, but most can be found near moms’ side.
At first, we did not see Whidbey ll but had the hunch she was nearby. Sure enough, her fin was spotted close to shore near a Provincial park. This area is protected so we stayed with Chainsaw and got a few glimpses of Mom in the distance. We never know exactly what our whales are up to, but today it was speculated that Whidbey ll may have been patrolling the shores looking for lunch for herself and her son.
Mother Orca are attentive to their offspring, particularly the first-born son, so it is a safe bet Chainsaw was waiting for his meal to be prepared like a big momma's boy! Each Orca consumes around 300 pounds of food per day, so mom has to find roughly 4 harbour seals a day to sustain them.
They may have just been travelling when we observed them but with appetites like theirs, it’s probably safe to assume they’re always looking for a bite to eat. After we spent our time with some of the most famous orca in the Salish Sea we got back into search mode. Maybe we would come across the orcas from this morning’s report!
While searching we popped over to Canoe Islets to see what the Steller sea lions were doing. They were in their cuddle puddles fighting over who was going to be “king of the castle” this time. There were a whole lot of sea lions hauled out today, giving our guests a really good chance to take in their stench! Wow, they were stinky - we left them to their bickering and got some fresh air flowing again.
We headed back north through Dodd Narrows towards our next stop at the Gabriola Bluffs. Here we spotted many different birds including our Cormorants, Gulls and a Turkey Vulture! We may have been pretty excited to see that redhead popping up amongst the rocks, the vultures are back! Speaking of back, so were we with a sprinkle of rain right as we docked but overall a dry day.

Photos taken by Marine Naturalist Vanessa Vereschahen.

April 24, 2024 - Chainsaw and his mommy out for a swim!

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