It was a beautiful breezy morning as our semi-covered vessel Kula and our open boat Cascadia pushed off the dock. We left the harbour and started looking for the whales we knew were likely to be around.

None of our whales are tagged or tracked, so we use just our own eyes to locate the whales on any given day. We found a pair of humpbacks quite quickly. These whales were identified as Stingray (BCZ0409) and Geometry (BCZ0338). They were just outside of the harbour over by Snake Island. These humpbacks were in about 100 meters of water, which is much shallower than the rest of the Strait of Georgia.

The question is, is Snake Island named after the supposed many snakes on it? We don’t know, but it has been confirmed that at least some live there! Snake Island is primarily a fishing and diving site. On the West side of the island, two navy ships have been sunk to create artificial reefs. One boat is a World War II destroyer called the HMCS Saskatchewan, and it was sunk in 1997. The other boat was the HMCS Cape Breton in 2001. It is one of the largest ships to be purposefully sunk to create reefs like this. There are multiple buoys here to moor a dive boat. Both vessels are just below 20 meters deep, so this is mostly an advanced diving site. But we think Stingray and Geometry have passed their dive certification! Humpbacks can dive as deep as 200 meters, even going below that sometimes! But usually, they don’t need to. In fact, they weren’t at all concerned with diving, they were more concerned with getting air time! They seemed to be having a blast, displaying all kinds of surface activity like breaching, tail lobbing, pec slapping, and cartwheeling. There was also a younger whale off in the distance, Wisp (KEY0051) who was having fun as well. Was he just enjoying himself or responding to these two? We might never know.

We watched these guys have their fun until we came to our hour with them. We had plenty of time on our hands so we went off in search of more whales. Our semi-covered vessel Kula came across Malachite (KEY0047) and “Mow” (BCY0523 Graze’s 2023 calf). Technically, Mow is unnamed and that is our nickname for them now. Even if they get a different name, we will likely be calling this one “Mow” for many years. Something was in the waves today because these whales were having a blast as well.

Eventually, both boats made their way over to a group of three humpbacks. These guys were a bit more chill, travelling along, but giving us gorgeous flukes. We identified these whales as Pop Tart (BCY1014), Ghost (BCX1333), and Scuba (BCY1225). Ghost is the oldest of this group, at least 15 years old according to Happywhale, but we don’t know her actual birth year. Pop Tart is a 2016 calf, so she’s 8, and Scuba is the youngest at 5 years old. What an interesting group of whales!

We watched these guys until it became time to start heading towards home. Luckily we had just enough time to squeeze in a visit to Stinky Rocks for some Steller Sea Lions and Harbour Seals, and we also stopped at the Gabriola Island bluffs for nesting cormorants! We checked off all the boxes today for whales and wildlife, and with that, we headed back to the harbour.

Photos from this morning’s trip were taken by Marine Naturalists Vanessa Vereschahen and Aly Kohlman.