It was another beautiful sunny afternoon as we set out on our adventure. Our boats sailed into the Southern Gulf Island where we began our search. We skirted around the islands while keeping our eyes peeled for any signs of whales. With no sign of them in sight we made our way into the Georgia Strait. Our efforts paid off when we saw the first whale of the tour who we identified as Zig Zag (BCX1193). Zig Zag is a whale we know well and today she was living up to her reputation for doing long dives and “zig-zagging” around. Despite this, Zig Zag consistently gave us a beautiful fluke when she went for a deep dive. This old girl did surprise us once when completely out of the blue she breached, launching her entire body into the air in a spectacular show of agility. Because it was so sudden we unfortunately didn’t get any photos but it will live on in our minds forever.

Despite Zig Zag’s best efforts, it was another whale named Valiant (BCX1773) that truly wowed us. Valiant was initially hanging out with another whale named Dalmatian (BCY0994) but before our semi-covered vessel Kula showed up the 2 of them separated. When Kula arrived Valiant’s attention quickly turned to the vessel. Some humpbacks are known to interact with vessels - we call those whales “muggers”. We never encourage whale interactions with the boats as being comfortable around boats can become detrimental to the whales. Valiant isn’t a whale that is typically interested in boats and though they were curious enough that we had to shut our engines down, they still maintained a slight distance as they played around the boat. Humpbacks are extremely charismatic and curious animals. Valiant checked out Kula and once their curiosity was satisfied they once again moved away and continued playing. We were so fortunate to see pec-slapping, tail-slapping and even Valiant’s eye!

It’s always an extremely exciting tour when we get to spend any time with Valiant. Take a close look at their tail and you will quickly realize that they’re a survivor. Looking at their fluke it’s believed that as a calf Valiant was attacked by orcas. The orcas managed to remove the tips of both sides of Valiant’s fluke and you can still see the scarring left by the orcas’ teeth. Luckily for Valiant, they survived the onslaught and now as a full-grown whale, they’ve developed a reputation for actively going out of their way to chase and harass orca. While we love both orca and humpback, we can’t blame them for having a vendetta.

Our open boat Keta saw cormorants and even a bald eagle on the way back to the harbour while Kula stopped with a couple more humpbacks. One of these whales was Valiant’s sibling - Cerulean/Watson (BCX1068 calf 2021)! Humpbacks have something called “feeding fidelity” which means that whales return to the same area year after year that their mothers taught them to feed in. While the siblings weren’t interacting and most likely didn’t even know they were related, it’s not surprising to us to see them in the same general area. The other whale was Trooper (BCX1854). Trooper has unfortunately experienced their own trauma but this time it was humans and not orcas causing it. In the spring of 2018, Trooper was struck by a boat and has a large gash in front of his dorsal fin from this. Luckily Trooper survived and we were so privileged to see him briefly during the tour. You can see pictures from our fantastic adventure by Marine Naturalists Aly Kohlman and Lucy Willis below!

August 1, 2024, 3:30 pm - Humpbacks, humpbacks, humpbacks!

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