This sunny afternoon we had two boats push off the dock in search of whales. We tend to spread out to increase our chances of success. Occasionally this means each of our boats manages to find their own whales, which was the case today!

Our semi-covered vessel found two Humpback Whales travelling together and was able to identify them as Split Fluke (BCX1068) and Arial (BCY0767). They appeared to be circling in one spot and were coming up to the surface to take a few breaths before diving underwater for a short period. This is a good indication that they’d found an area with plenty of food and were spending their time moving up and down the water column to eat. The humpbacks that come to our waters do so for exactly this reason; British Columbia is their feeding grounds. They migrate here around April each year and spend the summer months filling up on the food in our waters before heading back to either Hawaii, Mexico or Central America (their breeding grounds) over winter. There’s not much in the way of food for them down south, so typically when they arrive they are quite literally starving, having relied solely on the fat reserves they built up over the previous summer, and can spend up to 22 hours of the day feeding. An adult humpback needs around 3,000lb of food every single day (this increases to 5,000lb if pregnant or lactating) so it’s no surprise that’s often what they’re doing when we find them. It’s nice for us, as we get to have a good look at their tails as they lift them out of the water before each dive.

In the meantime, our open boat had found Holey Moley (BCY1220). They were rolling around for all to see and pec-slapping - lifting those long pectoral fins high out of the water before bringing them down with a hard smack on the surface. We suspect one of the reasons the whales do this is to communicate with others in the area. Sound travels much faster through water, so creating a big splash will quickly let nearby whales know they’re around. Along with this noise, we could hear Holey Moley trumpeting! Trumpets are noisy exhalations, wherein the whale controls the way the air flows out of their blowholes in order to create noise. It seems that after a while they tired themselves out, and went back to a travelling and diving pattern. They seemed to be heading towards the others in the area.

Our open boat also found Dalmatian (BCY0994), Harpy (BCZ0503), and Watson/Cerulean (BCX1068calf2021). These guys were hanging out and having fun it seemed! Harpy and Watson are pretty young whales, 4 and 3 years old respectively. Dalmatian was the oldest of this group at 9 years old, but was still playing around with the youngins. We got one of them lifting their rostrum out of the water, and we were treated to lots of pec slapping. Pretty soon the three decided to split up, each going their separate ways. Holey Moley arrived at the party a little bit late it seemed, but we got to watch them swim backwards! Sometimes whales will do weird unexplainable things, and this was definitely one of them.

We watched as these whales split up then started the journey homewards. On the way we came across another humpback. We stopped for just a while to get an ID before carrying onwards. Luckily this whale gave us a gorgeous high fluke. This whale was completely new to us, and is only known on Happywhale as HW-MN0444737.

Unfortunately we had reached the end of our time with the whales, so we had to head towards home. But we stopped for some Harbour Seals and Steller Sea Lions along the way! One of our favorite spots to see them is a place called Stinky Rocks. And for good reason, Steller Sea Lions don’t really have personal hygiene so if you’re downwind you get the stink. We also stopped at Gabriola Island for the cormorants at the bluffs, and saw some Bald Eagles in the trees! We would call this a successful day on the water!

Photos on this trip were taken by Marine Naturalists Val Watson and Lucy Willis.