Our two open boats left the dock for our afternoon tour in the hopes of catching up with the whales we’d seen earlier in the day. The last time we saw the whales they had been heading north, so we left the harbour in that direction with the boats spread out in order to expand our search area. None of our whales are tagged so we have to find them visually on every trip. The whales from the morning were nowhere to be seen but that’s all part of the fun with wild whales! We didn’t commiserate for long since soon enough, we spotted a blow in the distance. We caught up with a Humpback Whale travelling alone. We can identify humpbacks in two ways, by looking at their dorsal fins or the underside of their tail. Each individual will have a unique shape and markings to each, but as you can imagine, those tails which can reach almost 20 feet wide are much easier to work with when we’re trying to ID them.

This humpback was surfacing every so often but seemed to be resting so they weren’t showing off their tail. One of our boats had just made the call to leave the scene to see what else could be found, but almost as if the whale heard this, they suddenly decided to put on a show! There was two huge breaches out of the water, followed by a couple of chin slaps, which was incredibly impressive to see. They then gave us a nice view of their tail and we were able to identify our whale as Maite (BCX0565 calf 2022). This whale will have recently made the long journey to BC from their breeding grounds in Hawaii, where there’s not much for them to eat. We don’t often see this much activity from our humpbacks until they’ve had the chance to ease their hunger as each breach takes a huge amount of energy, it’s the equivalent of a human running a marathon. As Maite is too young to breed, they may not have used up as much of their energy as other whales while back in Hawaii, allowing us to reap the rewards with this spectacular show of strength.

After our time with Maite came to an end, we headed south in the Strait of Georgia. It didn’t take long to see more blows. This time, there seemed to be whales in every direction. We like to call this humpback soup! This is always exciting for us, but that excitement escalated even more when we noticed that one of our whales was with a new calf! We ID’ed our new mom as Slits (BCY0946) through the photos we got here later in the day. Slits is a brand new mother, never having been recorded with a calf before, and never even having her gender confirmed in another way! Slits has made the news before though, unfortunately not for a good reason. Back in 2022 Slits was reported to be entangled in fishing gear not too far from Nanaimo. Lucky for her, it was reported to DFO who was able to track her down again and do a spectacular rescue, which can be seen in this video here.

While the baby with Slits was super exciting, we had to do our best to get IDs for the rest of the whales around as well! First up was the whale that was associating with Slits and her calf. This whale has a very unique shape to their dorsal fin, making them relatively easy to ID. It was Dandelion (BCY1107)! Dandelion didn’t stick with the mom and calf for long before peeling off on their own, maybe to join the party with one of the many other whales around.

The next whale that we were able to ID was Bagheera (BCY0523calf2021)! Although we weren’t able to get a full look at the underside of Bagheera’s tail, we got a partial photo of it and were able to confirm this whale in the office based on the dorsal fin as well! With so many humpback around sometimes it takes a little creativity when trying to get the ID. There was two more whales present travelling in the area, but not together. It was Spock (BCY1134) and Dalmatian (BCY0994). Dalmatian is a common humpback to see in the Salish sea, with us seeing him year after year since his birth in 2015. Spock on the other hand isn’t as common for us, they just showed up once in 2022 and then a few times in 2023. This year though, Spock has been one of our most frequently sighted whales! These two both have very similar shapes to their tail flukes, but with very different patterns to them! You can really see the differences in the photos below. While it was great spending time with all of these humpbacks, it was time for us to start the journey back to Nanaimo.

But, before our journey was over, our boats headed to see some wildlife close to home! The first stop was at the Gabriola Bluffs. These towering sandstone cliffs are the nesting site for a colony of Cormoants that are using the cracks in this cliff to build their nests. The birds and the nests are impressive, but also the way these birds paint the cliffside with their guano! The cormorant poop hardens on the nest and actually helps hold them in place so winds and rain won’t cause them too much damage.

Along the bluffs is also where we usually see Bald Eagles, given they have a nest nearby. Today there was no sign of the baby, but we were lucky enough to catch an adult before they continued on with their day. Our final stop was at the Harmac Pulp Mill, to see the California Sea Lions that were spending their day resting on the log booms along the shore. These logs are tied in these large bundles and floated here from all over BC, since this is the most efficient way to transport them. The Sea Lions like this method as well since it means they get a comfy place to rest that moves up and down with the tides! After we left the sea lions, the tour came to an end, but what an amazing tour it was!

Photos from today were taken by Naturalists Aly Kohlman and Hayleigh Hilbert and can be viewed below.