After two great tours this morning, we were out and ready for round three! When we left the T075Bs this morning, they were heading north in Northumberland Channel, basically in our backyard! We headed out quickly in hopes of picking them back up. We ran into this family while they were perusing the Gabriola shoreline, lazily scoping for seals. It’s always exciting to see the same pod in one day because we often get to see a full range of behaviour from them. This pod consists of:

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

This small family was travelling at a good speed, and they have been spotted several times in our area in the past few days. Orcas can cover a lot of ground in a day, so we love it when a pod decides to hang out in our neck of the woods for a while! We spent some time with this group before continuing on our way to try and find some Humpbacks. Luckily we didn’t have to travel too far, as we soon ran into a trio! When our first boat Cascadia arrived on scene, they found Kappa (BCX0158), Vanta (BCY1274), and Wisp (BCY1333calf2021). Wisp is another animal who has been spending a lot of time in our area the past few weeks, and it seems like this youngster is always with friends. While the three-year-old has been hanging out with a couple of younger animals quite frequently, it seems they have decided to find some more mature company lately. Today Wisp chose to spend time with Kappa and Vanta, who are 26 and 19, respectively. Maybe young Wisp is looking for a mentor! Humpbacks do not organize into pods the same way the orca do, but in the past few years, we have seen them associating in small groups more and more frequently. After arriving on scene a little bit later, Kula was eager to spot the humpbacks the other boat came across. However, only young Wisp showed up. Looks like the older humpbacks made a hasty exit and forgot to tell the kid!

To our crew’s surprise, a different kind of blow appeared in the distance. We had surprise orcas! This unexpected group turned out to be the T023Ds, back again. This pod consists of:

T023D Axle/Brightly ♀ (1993)
T023D3 Robin ♂ (2012)
T023D4 Sixx (2015)
T023D5 (2019)

When the orcas are around, the humpbacks usually make themselves scarce, so it was no surprise the older pair disappeared so quickly. But we were especially surprised the T023Ds showed up. Why? Because we had already seen them today! On our early morning charter, we braved the waves and headed all the way over to Vancouver to follow this family, leaving them many kilometres away before heading home. That means that in the short hours since we left them, the T023Ds travelled a whopping 43 kilometres over to our area of the strait, at an average speed of 6.6 knots, or just over 12 km/hour. Incredible! While surprised, we were very happy to see them again and got to spend a bit of time with them at the end of our trip.

While the orcas never cease to amaze us, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen such incredible distances covered. In fact, orca can travel up to 150 km per day, and are constantly on the move! That’s why every time we find them we are grateful, and thrilled to see them stick around.

We finished up the day at Stinky Rocks, checking out the Pinnipeds and looking for as many species as we could find! Today we found Harbour Seals, Steller Sea Lions, and some cormorants as well. They were all hanging on to what was left of the rocks at high tide. The seals did not seem particularly disturbed by any waves coming over the rocks, even going as far to do a banana pose! This happens when seals are very relaxed and happy. We got a few photos of these bananas, and some other heads poking out as well before we pointed towards home.

Photos today were taken by Marine Naturalists Lucy Willis, Aly Kohlman, and Hayleigh Hilbert.

August 22, 2024, 3:30 pm - Double Species

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