It was a beautiful sunny day as our semi-covered vessel Kula and our open boat Cascadia headed into the Gulf Islands. We headed south through Dodd Narrows on our way to Active Pass where we had a report of humpbacks making their way into the Strait of Georgia.

We travelled among the beautiful scenery until we finally passed into the narrow passage between Galiano and Mayne Island. Lucky for us, another boat was also searching for these humpback whales and they had success! We all share sightings in the Salish Sea which makes life much easier, even though the whales are massive animals, they are dwarfed by the huge area that we search, so this helps to keep our success rate high. When we first found the humpback whales, they were heading NW along the Galiano shoreline, but then they decided to turn around and head down the island again. Most of the time we see milling behaviour like this from our whales it’s because they are eating! The East Side of Galiano Island has a nice ridge not too far from shore which helps the water mix as the tides are changing. This brings in more nutrients and allows the water to hold more life in it, mostly small plankton and fish. Those tiny animals are what these humpbacks are after though, so it turns into a smorgasbord! While we watched these two humpbacks diving to get to the food, we eventually got a photo as they lifted their tails to help propel them deeper into the water. This was lucky for us since the bottom side of their tail flukes is the easiest thing to ID on a humpback whale! This 20-foot-wide tail has different patterns on the underside and divots and bumps along the trailing edge of the tail flukes that we can use to ID them.

The first fluke that we got a photo of was nice and easy, it was arguably the most famous humpback whale in the Salish Sea, BCY0324 Big Momma! She has very distinct pattern to the underside of her tail, with a nice mix between the white and the black parts of her tail.

The other humpback wasn’t cooperating as often, but luckily they have a distinctly indistinct dorsal fin, and we later got a fluke photo to confirm BCX1193 Zig Zag!

We know that both of these whales are female, with Big Momma has brought back 7 calves to the Salish Sea, while Zig Zag has brought back 3! Pretty impressive if you ask me!

We watched these two lovely ladies feeding along Galiano Island for a while before it was time for us to start the journey home. We travelled along the strait side of Galiano, took Porlier Pass back into the inside of the Southern Gulf Islands, and returned to Nanaimo. It was an amazing tour with lots of wonderful moments captured by the onboard naturalists Hayleigh Hilbert and Lucy Willis, all of which you can see below.

May 7, 2024 - Big News! Big Momma is back (and Zig Zag too).

© Vancouver Island Whale Watch 2018-2024. All Rights Reserved.