It was a wild and wavy morning in the Salish Sea today! We had both waves and rain so we bundled up our open boat passengers and tucked the rest into Kula’s warm cabin, our semi-covered vessel. We often get asked if the weather affects the behavior of the whales, the short answer is no. We tell people the whales are already wet so rain doesn’t bother them. However, the waves and chop will sometimes make a difference in what we see on the water with the whales. When it is rough on the water we usually get to see more of the whales’ bodies as they have to surface a little higher to take a breath amongst the waves. Although we may get a bit wet, especially on the open boats it is often worth it!

Today was no exception, we had all kinds of behavior from the multiple Humpbacks we spotted fairly close to home. Our semi-covered spotted the first blows, it was Tempest (BCX0837) and her 2024 calf! Her calf seemed to have the whale version of zoomies, this rambunctious little whale was incredibly entertaining. A lot of times the babies are more active than adults, they have the energy to burn from mom’s rich milk while she does all the hard work finding the food! Those babies also do not have the blubber built up as the adults do so they need to keep moving to stay warm. This baby was breaching up a storm while Tempest chin slapped alongside. She also gave us a few pec slaps alongside that bouncing baby! While these two were what seemed like playing and having a whale of a good time, we spotted more blows close by. There was one, then two, then 3 big bushy blows! We had four Humpbacks most likely feeding, so we snuck over to see who it was. We had Fader (BCY0195), Niagara (BCY0057), Vanta (BCX1730) and BCY1274 stuffing their big mouths, or we can assume that is what they were up to. They seemed to be circling the general area usually indicating food is abundant here!

After spending time with our Humpbacks we popped over to meet our Harbour Seals at a place we call Seal Rock. These little guys were hauled out on the rocks some sleeping, some watching us back and some even nursing their babies. As we were enjoying the adorable seals, we got a report of Orca just around the corner. This made us happy, but I bet the seals felt differently about the Orca so close!

It was the T075Bs and the great news for the seals is that they were heading in the opposite direction. The Orca present today were.

T075B Pebbles ♀ (1995)
T075B2 Jasper ♀ (2015)
T075B3 Rubble (2017)
T075B4 (2021)

They were travelling along the Gabriola Bluffs giving us a beautiful background while watching them. They were more than likely patrolling the shore looking for a meal. Our Orca travel vast distances of around 100 miles a day and a good portion of that time they have an eye and ear out searching for prey. Each Orca needs to eat around 300 pounds of food per day, that is roughly 8 harbour seals a day for this family!

Our semi-covered vessel was watching the Steller Sea Lions at “Stinky Rocks” when we let them know we had spotted Orca, they ended up over at the bluffs along with our open boat to get a double species trip as well! Conveniently the Gabriols Bluffs are very close to home for us, and with the rain starting to come down hard at the end of the tour we headed back to dry land!

Photos were taken by Marine Naturalists Vanessa Vereschahen and Des Poier.

August 21, 2024, 10:30 am - Whales like waves!

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