It was another day where a beautiful sunny sky greeted us as we left the Nanaimo Harbour. We had both of our open boats out today, as well as our covered boat Kula! All three of them headed south when leaving and headed through Dodd Narrows, into the Southern Gulf Islands. From here we spread out and covered some different water. Kula headed towards Gabriola Pass, the small passageway at the south end of Gabriola and the north end of Valdes island. This took them out into the Strait of Georgia where they made a quick stop along Valdes Island to take a look at the wildlife along Stinky Rocks. This reef gets it’s nickname due to the local residents that we typically find here, the Steller Sea Lions! They are still being seen here in great numbers, usually with at least 20-40 on the rocks. The smell comes not just from the fact that they are defecating on the rocks, but also from their bad breath! You know how bad it can be with one person waking up without brushing their teeth, now imagine that with 50 bear-sized animals that only eat fish! Yuck! Watching the sea lions can be worth the smell, as they are usually pretty entertaining. They were mostly sunbathing when the boats saw them today though, only a few of them growling to the sky as we watched.

While this boat was out in the Strait, the others continued south in the islands to the South end of Valdes Island, passing through Porlier pass and over the northern tip of Galiano Island to join the search in the Strait. It was the covered boat that was successful in finding a humpback whale out there, with it helping by doing some surface activity! We saw the huge pectoral fins of this humpback rising out of the water and slapping back down on the surface of the water. Sometimes displays like this are to welcome other humpbacks to come over and socialize, but we think this might have been more of a “this is where I am feeding so keep away” type of slap since after about 15 minutes of this, they started doing deeper dives to where the food likely was. There were a couple of other humpbacks in the area who were also on longer dives, lifting their tails high before disappearing under the surface for about 15 minutes or more at a time.

The good thing about a humpback doing deep dives is that they typically need to lift their tails high to help propel them to the depths, so we were able to get a beautiful photo of the ventral side of this humpback’s tail, determining it to be Kraken (BCZ0180)!

Eventually, we had to leave Kraken behind, and we continued on to see what other wildlife we might see. We ended up seeing some adorable “rock sausages” aka Harbour Seals! There was even a newborn seal seen with one group of seals! They don’t look too much different than the adults, just a lot smaller. These seals are able to swim nearly immediately, although most of the time mom will leave them on the shore while she goes off and fishes for the both of them. They are dependent on their mother’s milk for the first couple of weeks and then will start hunting on their own, with some help from mom. By the time they reach 4-6 weeks old, they will be completely weened and self-sufficient. It’s a very quick turn around for these little mammals!

Our final stop on the tour today was at the Gabriola Bluffs, where we were treated to seeing Bald Eagles perched in the trees, along with some cormorants drying themselves on the rocks and in their nests. Not only is the wildlife great to see along the Gabriola Bluffs, but the towering sandstone cliffs themself are breathtaking, with some great examples of erosion along the way.

All of the photos taken during this adventure today were taken by the onboard Marine Naturalists Aly Kohlman, Lucy Willis, and Vanessa Vereschahen, and can be viewed below!

July 6, 2024, 10:30 am - Humpback Whale Kraken Playing in the Waves