It was a moody day with some clouds overhead as we left Nanaimo in search of whales. Lucky for us, we already had an idea of where there would be some, thanks to an off-duty captain who was driving the Hullo Ferry that day! They had seen a lot of humpback whales near the other side of the Strait during their crossing, so we decided to head in that direction to see if they would still be there, with our eyes peeled along the way of course.

We weren’t all that far from Howe Sound when we found our first blow. It was followed by another and another. We pulled up and were surrounded by Humpback Whales! There were too many to count, and our naturalists took on the daunting task of trying to figure out which whales we had!

We had our engines shut down when we had whales pop up relatively close. As one arced for a dive, we saw a chunk missing behind the dorsal fin. We had our first ID! Trooper (BCX1854). The second whale fluked, and we identified Sage (BCX2073). On the next surface, we got a fluke shot of Incognito (BCX2053), and one fluked just out of the frame of the camera. We looked at the photo back in the office and identified it as Butterfly Wings (BCX1658 calf 2021). These whales seemed to be in a cheeky mood and came very close to all three of our boats. We have some special regulations to follow as we watch our whales, including travelling parallel to them at a distance of 100m (or 200 if they’re resting or with a calf). Unfortunately, the whales don’t always follow these regulations, so if they surface too close, we have to shut down and wait for them to get back to the regulated distance before engaging the engines again. This helps to protect the whales from our boats, as well as making them more comfortable around us, we hope.

Meanwhile one of the zodiacs had stopped just a few hundred meters away with another pair of humpbacks. We were lucky enough to see their flukes and we identified Two Spot (BCZ0432) and Taurus (BCY1080). It seemed that the ruckus that the other whales were causing got them curious as they headed over to the other group and joined up. At some point, two more whales joined the mix. One of which we were able to identify thanks to its unique dorsal fin as Graze (BCY0523). The other whale didn’t cooperate with us until right at the very end when we were preparing to leave. He fluked and we identified Orion (BCX1251).

As we were leaving this humpback soup, one more whale made himself known with his iconic high fluke. It was Beak (BCX1606)! He surfaced a couple of times before we left him to it and continued back to our side of the Strait. Here we stopped at a lovely place that we call Stinky Rocks where there is a haulout of both of our common pinniped species: the large, noisy Steller Sea Lions, and the smaller, quieter Harbour Seals. We got some great looks at them before returning to the Nanaimo Habour. What a great morning!

The onboard Marine Naturalists Vanessa Vereschahen, Aly Kohlman, and Lucy Willis captured some great photos from the day which you can see below!