A sunny day with low wind, an ideal day for a tour! We put on a lot of nautical miles today searching high and low for our whales. Both our semi-covered vessel Kula as well as our open boat Cascadia set off in different directions to cover more ground! Cascadia went north close to shore while Kula stayed in the middle of the strait then decided to head across to the Sunshine Coast and try their luck! Out of nowhere, blows became visible against the horizon with whales in multiple directions. Cascadia found Lucky (BCZ0419) who was happily showing off her fluke making her very easy for our Naturalist to identify! The whale with our other guests on Kula was not so cooperative. We did not see them fluke and only got a picture of their dorsal fin. Although a dorsal can be used for identification the tail is much easier and as a result, this whale remained a mystery to us. After waiting for a possible tail we cut our losses and continued on leaving our Humpback to feast on tiny goodies! Kula may not have got a tail from this whale but luckily they spotted another whale in the distance. Unfortunately, this humpback was also playing shy and not fluking. We jokingly refer to this as a lazy-tail, so we had another lazy-tail whale! Often at the beginning of the season, our humpbacks who are just returning from their breeding grounds are hungry and are more interested in filling their bellies rather than putting on a show. While Kula was watching one of our mystery whales we got a call from Cascadia, that they had found orcas! With excitement, Kula put the throttle down to join Cascadia and see both species. As luck would have it, the family that was found was one of our favourite pods the T049As! Well most of them! The orca we saw today were:

T049A Nan ♀ (1986)
T049A3 Nat ♂ (2011)
T049A4 Neptune ♂ (2014)
T049A5 Nebula ♀ (2017)
T049A6 Charlie II ♂ (2022)

Nan our matriarch has had 6 children and so far all of them have survived which is very impressive! Her 2 eldest sons were not by her side today, which is strange for Orca, but not for this matriline. Her eldest son Noah is usually travelling close to his pod joining up with them periodically. Her second son Jude seems to prefer the bachelor life and seems to prefer the company of other lone males. A matriline is made up of the matriarch and her offspring, typically males will stay with mom their entire lives but females often leave their mothers when they have their own calves in the Biggs population. Only one of Nan’s children is female with no calves of her own (yet), perhaps when Nebula has some of her own babies she will become a matriarch!

Kula also spent some time with our large Steller Sea Lions at the White Islets, where we were able to spot their smaller cousins the Harbour Seals as well.

Enjoy the photos below by onboard Marine Naturalists Hayleigh Hilbert, Lucy Willis. and Vanessa Vereschahen.