It was another beautiful day as our two vessels, Kula and Cascadia, left the Nanaimo harbour and started the search for whales. The first place we went was out into the Strait of Georgia, the body of water that separates Vancouver Island and the Southern Gulf Islands from the mainland of BC. We spread the boats out and started looking for the signs of whales.

For humpback whales what we usually spot first is the blow, the water that is shot into the air when the whale exhales. On the 17-meter-long humpback whales, they can have the blow reach almost 20 feet in height! Sometimes with the right conditions, these large bushy blows can be spotted from miles away. With the orca, they are slightly smaller, so these blows are smaller and can be harder to spot, but they also have the large, distinct black dorsal fin that can reach heights of 6 feet with a fully grown male!

This is what we kept an eye out for while we travelled in the Strait, and sure enough, we spotted a blow! As we approached we confirmed it was a humpback whale we spotted from a distance. This whale seemed to be feeding in the area, going for deeper dives and surfacing sporadically in the Strait. Eventually, they decided to cooperate on their positioning and we got enough of a photo of their tail fluke to confirm it was Fader (BCY0195)!

While we were hanging out with Fader, we got word that a pod of orca had just passed through Dodd Narrows, heading towards Nanaimo! So we decided to leave Fader to their feeding and tried our luck at locating those orca. We ended up spotting them in Northumberland Channel, only two minutes from the Harbour! It just goes to show you, that you never know where the whales might show up!

Thanks to the big cameras onboard and the knowledge of the Naturalists, we quickly IDed these whales as the T101s, a mother travelling with two of her sons:

T101 Reef ♀ (≤1969)
T101A Rush ♂ (1993)
T101B Lagoon ♂ (1997)

When we first found them, we had Lagoon on the far side of Northumberland Channel, and Reef and Rush travelling closely together, but once they left the narrower channel, the distance between the two groups became much bigger and we could hardly see Lagoon in the distance!

When we see a spread in the orca pod like this, it’s usually because they are on the prowl for food. They would still be able to communicate at this distance and let the other group know that they came across something if they did. But the other option for this way of travel is pod dynamics. Orca are very social and have more complex interactions than we really know, and there are special relationships between the matriarchs and their sons. Reef seems to be guilty of favouritism to a great extent among her sons. Before his passing, she would always be glued to her eldest son, T102 Beardslee’s side, but since his death in 2020, Rush is her new favourite. Rush and Lagoon used to be inseparable, travelling side by side while their mother travelled with Beardslee, but now it’s rare to see the boys too close without their mom.

Orca are big momma boys, given they will typically travel with mom until either she passes away, or they do. Given females live much longer than males, you see both these possibilities splitting up the pod about evenly. Hopefully, all three of the members of this pod live on for a long time though, since they are such an amazing sight to see!

After spending some time with the T101s, we continued the search for other wildlife. There was a seal haul-out nearby, but with a higher tide, nearly all the Harbour Seals were in the water as small floating heads. What we did see on the rocks was a cute little River Otter making a run for the water! A common sight on the docks of the Harbour but slightly less common to see on the small islands that we visit during our tours.

We also got to see an interesting interaction with birds at this stop, where a small Oyster Catcher was trying to chase off a Bald Eagle that was perched nearby. Since we are getting into nesting season for the Oyster Catchers, they get quite aggressive and will fight off any other birds or animals they think are a threat to their nest. This Bald Eagle seemed uninterested in any of it, but we enjoyed watching it!

Finally, we finished the trip off with a quick stop at the Gabriola Bluffs, where there were many cormorants, Eagles, and even some Steller Jays watching over us as we slowly travelled along the towering sandstone cliffs observing these nesting birds.

Our onboard Naturalists Aly Kohlman and Hayleigh Hilbert captured some great photos of all the wildlife we saw today, which can be viewed below!