Another moody west coast day greeted Kula and her passengers as they headed out into the Salish Sea in search of wildlife. We went over the north end of Gabriola Island, into the Strait of Georgia to see what we might find out there today. And it seems that the answer was Humpback Whales!

We saw the telltale sign of the humpback whales in the distance, blows! As we approached, there was multiple whales travelling in close proximity. Thanks to identification while with the whales, and by looking through our photos afterwards, we determined the following humpbacks to be present:

Split Fluke (BCX1068)
Dandelion (BCY1107)
Coyote (BCX0837calf2021)
Viking (BCY1063)

These whales were surfacing often, but without the long dives that indicate feeding between them, and they weren’t lifting their tails very often. Given this behaviour, we thought these whales were likely resting at the surface, if not fully asleep.

Whales have an interesting way of sleeping since they can’t turn off their entire brain all at once. They have to think about breathing, so sleeping like we do would likely cause them to suffocate. Instead by only resting one side at a time, they are able to keep alert and breathing. But they usually don’t get up to too much while they are resting. When they wake up though is a different story! We find about half the time the whales awaken, they have some extra energy to spend. In this case, this energy came out as curiosity and a couple of the whales came by to check out our vessel. This curious behaviour happens once in a while with our humpback whales, so we know what to do. We just shut our engines off until the whale loses interest. It didn’t last long this encounter, with only a few close surfaces to our vessel.

After the whales woke up, our time with them was basically up, so we left them behind and continued the search for other wildlife. We came across quite a bit, with Sea Lions, Seals, and Bald Eagles being some of the more notable ones. Before long, it was time to return to Harbour and get ready for the afternoon tour!

In the afternoon we decided to try and find the same whales that we had seen this morning, but this time we had two boats helping in the search. We headed back to the East side of Gabriola Island and sure enough, there was some humpback whales there! Interestingly, it wasn’t the same whales that we had seen this morning. First the open boat found a single humpback whale travelling who we were able to ID as Poptart (BCY1014)! Poptart has quite a bit of white on the underside of her tail flukes, as well as a few unique markings and divots that make her unique. She was busy feeding today, not spending very long at the surface before diving back under the water to where her food was. So we left her behind and went towards the other blows that we could see in the distance.

This time it was a pair of humpbacks together. One was fluking very nicely as they went for their feeding dives, while the other wasn’t as cooperative. The fluking whale was quickly IDed as Wormhole (BCX1275). Later on by looking at photos with a larger screen, we were able to figure out that Wormholes friend was Wiggins (BCX1602calf2022). Interestingly, Wormhole is thought to be at least 15 years old, and wasn’t spotted in the waters of the Salish Sea until last year, 2023. Is this old timer trying to teach young Wiggins a few things about life? We like to think so!

Leaving Wormhole and Wiggins to their feeding, we had one more pair of blows in the distance that we wanted to investigate! This pair of whales was Seabird (BCX1774) and Spock (BCY1134) travelling in the same area, but not associating like the other whales had been. Seabird was resting at the surface, while Spock seemed to be going for feeding dives, lifting their beautiful tail up into the air. While all whales are beautiful to look at, some capture a special place in our minds, and Spock held that place today. With high flukes, a lovely pattern on the underside, and a very unique dorsal fin, Spock is a fantastic humpback whale.

Finally, it was time to head back to Nanaimo, but wait, there’s more! With a very late report of a humpback whale heading towards Dodd Narrows, one of our crew couldn’t resist and went to get an idea of who this humpback was. It seemed to be feeding in the current created by the tide in Dodd, and lucky for us that meant they showed us their tail. Given the tail and a very unique shape to their dorsal fin, we were able to tell this whale was the 2022 calf of BCX1710! We only stayed for a couple surfaces before returning to Nanaimo. What an amazing day!

Our onboard naturalists Des Pier (AM and PM) and Aly Kohlman (PM) captured some great photos from the day!