It was another beautiful day as our open boat left the Nanaimo Harbour. We were very lucky, given that there was reports of whales just on the other side of Gabriola Island from us! We decided to head over that way and see who it was. We were quickly greeted by the large bushy blows of humpback whales in the distance!

As we got closer it was clear to us that these whales were feeding. Not only becuase as we watched, they went through the routine of feeding under the surface, returning to the surface for a few breaths before lifting their tail and diving under again, but one of these whales was also lunging at the surface with their mouth open! Lunge feeding is the most common feeding strategy that we see in the Salish Sea, although the majority of the time it happens under the water, not at the surface like this!

It’s great seeing feeding behavior from the humpbacks since that’s the entire reason that they return to our waters, but it’s also great since the humpbacks will usually lift their tail to help propel themselves down the water column to where their food is. The underside of the tail is the easiest way to ID humpback whales thanks to the unique colour, patterns, and general shape of the tail. Today we were able to tell the humpback whales we found were Slits (BCY0946) and her 2024 calf travelling with Crackle (BCY1227). It seemed to us that it was the calf we saw lunging at the surface the most, so maybe they were receiving a lesson from the older whales!

After spending time with the humpback whales, we headed along the Gabriola Shoreline towards Stinky Rocks, where we ended up seeing a bunch of Pinnipeds! It was not only the larger (and louder) than life Steller Sea Lions, but on the shallower sloped rocks we also saw Harbour Seals! Although closely related to each other, you can see big differences in the two species, size, sound, and most fun to watch, their ability to move on land! While we watched the Sea Lions you’ll see them running across the rocks while the Harbour Seals only do what’s called Galumphing, basically doing the worm to move. While we were being entertained watching the antics of these animals, we got word that there was a report of more whales not too far from us, this time orca, so we decided to boogie over!

The whales were travelling in Stuart Channel, just off of Crofton when we caught up with them. It was two Males travelling together:

These two were slowly travelling north together, up the shore of Vancouver Island. We stayed with them as they travelled, impressed again at the grace that these huge marine mammals have as they glide through the water. Cooper, being a fully grown male has a much larger, straighter dorsal fin than his companion Jude. Jude seems to be experiencing partial dorsal fin collapse, which is just a fancy way of saying that his dorsal fin as a bend at the top. As the years go on, this bend seems to become more an more apparent. Comparing todays photos to the last time we saw Jude, on April 4th, 2023, you can really see the difference!

We ended up leaving the boys behind, and started back to the Nanaimo Harbour where we dropped off the morning guests.

It was time for the afternoon tour! We collected our guests and crew again and the open boat took off, hoping to find Cooper and Jude once again. With two large males travelling in a relatively narrow channel, it wasn’t long until we found them!

The two were still travelling north, but we caught up with them closer to Yellow-point this time. Transient orca spend a large portion of their day traveling. They have been known to travel over 100 miles in a single day, so seeing them on the move is what we see them doing the vast majority of the time. It’s likely that they stopped along their way to hunt a couple of times since both of these boys require an average of 500 pounds of food everyday. Transient orca males are more important and efficient at hunting than their resident counterparts, partially due to their prey differences. The large size of the Transient males helps with their larger prey, like Seals Sea Lions, and Porpoises, since the pack more of a punch during a hunt. The fish eating residents rely more on coordinated movement and fine maneuvering, so Resident Orca males aren’t as important in the hunt. They theorize the difference in hunting is why we will see lone transient orca, but not lone resident orca. It’s of course much more complicated than just that, but still very interesting! So two large transient orca males may be able to hunt together without much effort and still get the required amount of food each day.

They continued travelling north and later passed through Dodd Narrows, but we were out of time with them before that point, so we continued on our way to try and find some other wildlife!

We made a stop to visit with the Pinnipeds that were still lazily resting on Sticky Rock, before we continued further into the Strait of Georgia to see if we could find ourselves some humpback whales. Although the whales (both species) can be found anywhere in the waters and channels within our range, the humpback whales tend to like to spend time in high productivity areas. This makes sense, given that it’s where their food is located. So we headed out to where another boat had spotted a pair of humpbacks travelling together, out in the middle of the Strait, and were rewarded in our search by a pair of blows in the distance. It was the humpbacks!

This afternoon it was a different pair of humpbacks than who we saw this morning. They were feeding in the area, making IDing them from their tails easy, it was Zig Zag (BCX1193) and Split Fin (BCZ0298)! Both of these whales are known in the area from the many years that they have been returning to our waters. Zig Zag has been recorded in the area since 2006 as she showed up as an adult while Split Fin has been since since his birth in 2006 to famous local humpback whale Big Momma! Seeing these two travelling together is very interesting, and leads into questions about potential long term social interactions between humpback whales. Hopefully as research continues, we will get more insight into the developing social lives of the humpbacks as their numbers rebound!

After leaving the whales, it was a beautiful ride home in the glow of the slowly setting sun.

All of the photos from both the 10:30 and 3:30 departures taken by Marine Naturalist Vanessa Vereschahen can be viewed below, and are marked with which tour time they are from!

June 18, 2024 - Some fins we haven't seen in a while!

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