November 11, 2025 - Tempest and Graphite outside Nanaimo, and the T049As taking us home!
Any day spent on the water is a good one, but today turned out to be even better! Without having to travel too far from the Nanaimo Harbour, we ended up finding both common species of whales, Humpback and Orca, as well as a huge variety of other wildlife!
It started with us heading into the Strait of Georgia, which is usually a good place to find whales of both types. Today, it was the large bodies of the Humpback Whales surfacing amongst the waves that caught our eye. Upon approach, we were able to identify this pair of whales as Tempest (BCX0837) and Graphite (BCX2077) associating together. It seemed that this pair was working together to feed in the area, disappearing below the surface for a few minutes at a time before reappearing, and doing so somewhat playfully. Each time these two were at the surface, we saw Graphite rolling on his side, lifting a pectoral fin, and both of them gave a lovely little flick of their tail each time they decided to dive again. They were very entertaining to watch! Eventually, though, we had to leave them to their feeding, and we decided to head inside the Southern Gulf Islands to continue our search for wildlife.
Before heading through Dodd Narrows and into Stuart Channel, we decided to make a stop along the way, since the log booms alongside the Harmac Pulp Mill are usually teeming with life! This held true today, as we saw a huge colony of both Steller Sea Lions and California Sea Lions in the area. They were as entertaining to watch as ever, with fights breaking out amongst the individuals, while others stretched out and peacefully scratched themselves. In addition to the Sea Lions we typically expect to find here, there was also a pair of smaller visitors: River Otters! These log booms provide shelter for many species, both above and below the surface, so it’s not surprising to see these little mustelids also here. They might be taking a break from the cold water before continuing their travels, or they might have been taking advantage of an easy meal that lay below the surface, as many fish species use these log booms for protection. No matter why they were there, we enjoyed the brief look we had at them before they jumped back into the ocean. The last noteworthy animals spotted on these logs were a pair of Bald Eagles perched away from the louder Sea Lion species. We got a fantastic look at this pair before they took to the air, and we continued on our way.
We headed through Dodd, and were searching the Islands when we got word of a pod of orca travelling the shoreline back towards Dodd Narrows. We quickly headed back the way we came and shortly spotted the blows of the whales that we were looking for. It didn’t take long for us to figure out who these whales were, as they are a common sight in our local waters…it was the T049As! This pod consists of 5 members currently, a matriarch, Nan, and four of her six kids:
T049A Nan ♀ (1986)
T049A3 Nat ♂ (2011)
T049A4 Neptune ♂ (2014)
T049A5 Nebula ♀ (2017)
T049A6 Charlie II ♂ (2022)
T049A1 Noah and T049A2 Jude are her two eldest sons, but they aren’t seen travelling with the rest of the pod very often. Sometimes Noah will return to the family for brief periods of time, but Jude isn’t seen with them frequently at all. He isn’t often spotted alone, though, as he finds himself in companionship with some other lone individuals, or sometimes other pods entirely. The two lone brothers are also spotted together quite frequently, interestingly enough. It seems these two have kept some of their mother’s habits, though, since they are often spotted in the same general area that she is travelling through herself. The members of the pod we saw today may take after their brothers and eventually leave their mother behind as well, but most often, with orca, you will see males travelling with their mother for their entire life.
We will be interested to see what happens with the other boys in this pod, since there are so many of them! Females will usually disperse when they start having their own calves, so Nebula will likely break away from the rest of the pod when she matures to start her own pod. Still, the rest of the group are boys, so this might end up being a very impressive-looking pod as they all begin to go through puberty. Males and females look the same until that point, but once puberty hits, the male's dorsal fin will get much larger and start to straighten out a bit more. This “sprouting” stage will last a few years until they reach full growth around 20 years old. Nat is in this process and will likely continue to become even more impressive to look at as we continue to see them. Even now, next to his mother and siblings, he seems quite a bit bigger. But bigger doesn’t mean better with orca, as the smaller females will remain in charge of the pod their whole lives. So, Nan, here, will still be in charge of the pod, even as her sons start to tower over her in size.
We can’t wait to see how this pod evolves, and I’m sure it will remain amongst our favourites still! We ended up travelling with the T049As all the way back through Dodd Narrows, Northumberland Channel, and right to the Nanaimo Harbour. Funnily enough, after we had left them and returned to the dock, the whales followed us right into the Harbour, and we could watch them pass through the Harbour from our office as we were doing our paperwork! Now THAT doesn’t happen very often!
It was a fantastic trip, getting to see Tempest and Graphite travelling together, as well as the T049As travelling by Nanaimo. Please enjoy all the photos from the trip below, captured by our onboard Marine Naturalist Val Watson!
