June 3, 2025, 3:30 PM - A hodgepodge of Orca followed by Humpback Soup!

The sun was shining and the wind was dying as we had our boats leaving for the afternoon tour, which made the crossing to the Sunshine Coast nice and easy! We were headed here because one of the Vancouver Based boats had found some orca travelling together near there. Typically when we see orca, they travel in matrilineal pods, without much change from that core group. Today though, there was an outlier amongst the group, a male T137A Jack, who was seemingly by himself without the rest of his pod in sight. There was other small fins nearby, but we IDed those as members of the T071Bs and T086A1s, not as the rest of the T137s.

Most likely, the rest of Jack’s pod wouldn’t have been too far away, but we didn’t see them during our time here. Instead we got to spend time with these whales:

T071B Hood ♀ (2000)
T071B1 Zengo ♀ (2013)
T071B2 Tasli/Nemo ♂ (2018)

T086A1 Nahanni ♀ (~2001)
T086A1B Denali (2023)

T137A Jack ♂ (2002)

Even with the rest of the T137s not making an appearance today, it was likely that Jack still knew where they were. Orca can communicate over long distances, staying in touch even when they’re miles apart. Being close to Howe Sound and all its small islands, the rest of the family might have been out of sight but not out of range.

Jack didn’t seem to mind being away from the rest of his pod, though, likely enjoying his time socializing with the other orca. Orca are very social creatures, being known to celebrate coming into contact with other pods and spending time with whales who are outside of their own family. From scanning their brains, scientists think that they have an even more developed social center than we do. This might mean that the importance of their social interactions goes beyond what we can even imagine.

The T071Bs and T086A1s are a great example of these complex interactions, as the two T071B kids had been travelling away from their mother for a while, only rejoining her at the beginning of this year. Since then, it seems that they have been spending lots of time with the various T086A pods. This is interesting since we saw the kids with the same family when they were away from their mom. Perhaps the time spent now is Hood learning about her kids’ time away, or her needing support after the loss of her most recent calf.

It was fascinating watching the whales and speculating about what might be driving these interactions. But all good things must come to an end, so we left them to it and started to head back across the Strait of Georgia. We couldn’t make it all the way, though, since it seems that our path was blocked with some “Humpback Soup”!

This is nothing to complain about, though, since that just means that the ocean around us was so dense with humpback whales feeding that you couldn’t look in any direction without spotting one of their telltale blows or their tails lifting into the air to dive. Although there must have been around 20 humpbacks in the area, we got to spend time with 8 of them, in pairs or trios. Sometimes it can be hard being in humpback soup since you want to get a good look at every single individual. Most of the time, trying to do this is just impossible, since if you try to jump from whale to whale, you won’t get any good views of any of them! But, we don’t mind only getting to see 8 since that’s an impressive number on its own!

The whales we watched were in the following groupings:

Thunderbolt (BCX1675calf2023) and Camelot (BCY1458)

Strike (BCX1675), Niagara (BCY0057) and Harpy (BCZ0503)

Schooner (BCY1462) and Kelpie (BCY1276)

Seeing these large groupings of humpback whales is a very welcome sight, since these animals were considered at risk in our area, thanks to commercial whaling reducing their numbers. Lucky for us, their numbers are on a huge upswing! It has been dubbed the “Humpback Comeback” in the area, with more and more of them being recorded returning to the waters surrounding Vancouver Island each year. Humpbacks are known for having high Site Fidelity, meaning that they return to the same area year after year, without much variation. Calves also tend to return to the same area that their mothers did, so you can sometimes see little family groupings, like we did today with Strike being seen in the same trip as her 2023 calf, Thunderbolt. There isn’t any long-lasting bond between the humpback whales; you don’t often see related individuals spending time together, although there are sometimes exceptions to that.

Sitting and watching some of the humpbacks close, and some just as blows in the distance, was wonderful, but eventually we had to leave the humpback soup behind and head back to Nanaimo, but not before a brief stop at Stinky Rock to see the Steller Sea Lions and Harbour Seals that spend their times lounging on the rocks there. Although both are found in the same general area, physical differences between the two mean that they have slightly different rocks that they prefer to haul out on. The Sea Lions will be on the steeper rocks, while the seals will be where the slope isn’t as intense. It was great to see both of these species before returning to the dock, weaving our way through the Southern Gulf Islands to get there.

The onboard Marine Naturalists Aly Kohlman and Jordan Robinson captured some great photos of these encounters, which can be viewed below!

T086A1 Nahanni with her calf T086A1B Denali right behind her. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

T137A Jack and T086A1 Nahanni. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

T071B1 Hood. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

T086A1 Nahanni with T086A1B Denali porpoising beside her. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

T071B1 Zengo and T071B2 Tasli/Nemo. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

T137A Jack rolling around, his large curved tail above the water. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

T071B2 Tasli/Nemo - while he has no notches, the faded edge of his dorsal fin paired with the vertical rake marks can be used to confirm his ID. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Big boy T137A Jack. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

T137A Jack upside down and frolicking. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

T071B2 Tasli/Nemo beside T086A1B Denali. Photo by Jordan Robinson.

T137A Jack close behind T071B2 Tasli/Nemo. Photo by Jordan Robinson.

Camelot’s fluke as they dive. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Camelot’s fluke. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Camelot’s dorsal fin. Photo by Jordan Robinson.

Thunderbolt’s fluke. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Strike beside Niagara. Photo by Jordan Robinson.

Strike’s left dorsal fin. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Strike’s fluke as she dives. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Niagara’s left dorsal fin. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Niagara’s top/dorsal side of their fluke has a unique white marking we can use to confirm his ID. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Niagara’s fluke as he dives. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Harpy’s left dorsal fin. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Harpy’s fluke. Photo by Jordan Robinson.

Schooner’s bottom/ventral fluke as they dive. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Schooner’s top/dorsal fluke as they dive. He suffered an extensive injury, but he has healed and persevered! Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Kelpie’s fluke as they dive. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Kelpie’s left dorsal fin - they had a serious skin condition while young, leading to a rough texture scarring on their skin. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Sea lions can be very dog-like - especially when they need to scratch an itch like this! Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Our large lumbering chunky male Steller sea lion at Stinky Rocks. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

A sleepy Harbour seal nestled into the rocks during the sunset. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Our open vessel Keta near Stinky Rocks. Photo by Aly Kohlman.