You couldn’t ask for better weather than what we had today; the sun was shining overhead, and the winds were calm, so we decided the best course of action would be to head into the Strait of Georgia. Earlier in the day, during our morning tour, we had left a pod of orca heading north in Northumberland Channel. They had headed into the Strait, so we followed suit with our eyes peeled!

It wasn’t long before we found them, the towering dorsal fins of the two adult boys making things easy for us, especially in the calm water. The pod we found was the T101s, a group of three whales travelling together: a mom and her two adult sons.

T101 Reef ♀ (≤1969)
T101A Rush ♂ (1993)
T101B Lagoon ♂ (1997)

While all orca are quite impressive in size, these three really take the cake! In a 2020 survey of the Biggs population, T101A Rush was found to be 7.6 meters in length, just 0.7 meters smaller than the largest male in the entire transient orca population, T011A Rainy. In addition to the length of the animals, they also have those very impressive dorsal fins, likely having reached the full 6-foot height, if not very close to it. The amazing thing about those towering dorsal fins is the fact that they don’t have any bones supporting the structure, but are rather formed by dense connective tissue. This leads to increased flexibility, which sometimes you can see on display if they are moving quickly at the surface. Today, though, the T101s seemed to be resting, spending lots of time moving slowly at the surface. Whales need periods of rest like this throughout the day, as they don’t have the same sleep schedule as we do. Instead, they have unihemispherical sleep, where half of their brain rests at a time. They do these “power naps” throughout the day, taking anywhere from a few minutes to an hour in this state before becoming more aware again. It was great to spend so much time at the surface with these impressive animals before we decided to continue our search.

Since the Strait was so nice and calm, we stuck out here and started searching towards an area known as Halibut Bank, a usual hotspot for activity thanks to the upwelling that the bank creates in combination with the changing tides. We usually expect to have a higher chance at seeing humpback whales here, drawn in by the plankton and small fish that are here in abundance, but today it was something else that caught the eye of one of our crew: more orca! This time, it was the T123s travelling together through the Strait, well, mostly together anyway. The adult male in this group, T123A Stanley, seemed to want some alone time, travelling about a mile away from the other members of his pod.

T123 Sidney ♀ (~1985)
T123A Stanley ♂ (2000)
T123C Lucky ♀ (2012)
T123D Darcy ♀ (2018)

When we first found them, these whales were acting quite similarly to the T101s, travelling along without much activity at the surface until suddenly, T123 Sidney, the matriarch, hit a porpoise out of the water, and the hunt was on. Or at least we thought it would be on, but this one blow seemed to be all it took to take down this little porpoise, as they nearly immediately went into food-sharing behaviour. Since porpoises are so quick and agile, the first hit during a hunt is super important, as it acts to stun and incapacitate their prey, making them an easier target. In this case, this one hit did more than enough, and the hunt was over. When sharing prey, each member of the pod will get to share in the meal, dividing the food up by tearing up underneath the surface. Usually, this would mean that Stanley would have rushed in to get his share (even though he didn’t help) but today he was satisfied to keep his distance. This hunt all took place very quickly, as you can imagine, the hunt, kill, and food sharing only lasted about 15 minutes all in before we saw them continue on with their travels like nothing had just happened! We left them to it, and also continued on our travels.

Next up was the Halibut Bank ODAS buoy, where there have been quite a few Steller Sea Lions spending time lately. With so many sea lions and a relatively small space, there is sometimes fights that break out as new sea lions attempt to climb aboard the buoy, but today the sun must have baked the fight out of them, as they were content to just cuddle on the marker.

After watching these resting giants for a while, we continued searching on our way back to Nanaimo. Soon enough, we had success, spotting the blows of a pair of humpback whales not too far from Gabriola Island. These two seemed to be feeding in the area, lifting their tails high into the air before disappearing below the surface for a few minutes, only to pop back up in basically the same spot. This is a good indicator of feeding, since they will be doing lots of directional changes under the surface, chasing that prey down. They are mostly after Krill in our area, although small schooling fish are also on the menu for them. They need to eat a ton in a day (literally) to build up their fat reserves before they make their southern migrations to their breeding grounds. While down south, they don’t have as much food available to them, so this fat becomes their main energy source. When feeding and showing off their tails, it does make ID easy for us, though, matching the unique patterns, scars, and sometimes chunks missing in our catalogue. These two we knew were Smoke/Squirrel (BCX2183) and Yakima (BCX2182)! It was great watching these two, perfectly synchronized as they moved through the water, but all good things must come to an end, so we had to leave them to their dinner and continue back to Nanaimo. What a great end to an already amazing day! Please enjoy the photos captured throughout the tour by the onboard Marine Naturalists, Val Watson, Aly Kohlman, and Hayleigh Hilbert, below!

July 17, 2025, 3:30 PM - Ts times two in the Strait, and some hungry humpbacks!

The T101s

The T123s