We started the day on this beautiful, sunny morning, not sure what would be waiting for us as we began our search of the Salish Sea. Little did we know how much excitement we would witness today! It started with the thrill of spotting the first set of blows in the distance, a surefire sign that there were whales in the area. These large spouts are released when the whales come to the surface to breathe, usually recovering after a long, feeding dive beneath the water. However, sometimes it might be taking a breath to recover from surface behaviours, which all of our boats also got to witness today.

The first whales that were encountered by our vessels were two young whales: Watson/Cerulean (BCY1461) and Scuba (BCY1225). We were enjoying the playful nature of these two interacting, interested to see some of the rarer social behaviour from the humpback whales. It wasn’t too long ago that these gentle giants were considered solitary animals, although now we think that was more likely due to their low numbers and not their personal choices. These two were swimming very close together, with Watson seeming to be pestering Scuba, perhaps trying to be more playful while Scuba wasn’t in the mood. Eventually, Scuba lost interest and left Watson, which only seemed to spur her on even more! Watson slipped below the surface and erupted out of the water suddenly, the power of her movements throwing not only herself clear out of the water but also dragging a huge volume of seawater along with her. As the waves of water crashed back to the surface, so did Watson, with a thunderous clap, as her body hit the surface. Much to the excitement and awe of both guests and crew, Watson continued to show off her tremendous power, breaching again and again, as we watched on. Seeing whales breaching is quite rare, mainly because of the vast amount of energy required. Each time Watson flew out of the water, she was reaching speeds of nearly 18 knots and burning the same amount of energy that it takes a human to run a marathon. So why might she continue doing such an energetically expensive activity? Well, she might be knocking off the nearly 500 pounds of parasites that live on her skin (barnacles and lice), she may be communicating to other humpbacks nearby, or she may have just been doing it for fun! Most likely, it works out to be some combination of these three. No matter why they do it, it’s always a fantastic sight to see.

The next humpbacks seen were not too far from Watson, and these whales appeared to be focused on socializing and were also being quite active at the surface. These whales started as just a cow-calf pair: Kappa (BCX0158) and her 2025 calf, but then had another join in, making their duo a trio! It was Vanta (BCX1730). In addition to these three travelling together, another pair was spending time not too far away, which we IDed to be Professor X (BCX1965) travelling with Velvet (BCY1186). During this encounter, it seemed like Kappa and her calf, and Vanta were the most active, with their massive pectoral fins lifting from the water and slamming back onto the surface with great force. These pectoral fins are the largest in the world, reaching lengths of around 5 meters when fully grown. These large flippers come in handy for a handful of reasons. They might use the sound of impact of these pectoral fins slapping on the water as a communication technique; they can be used for defence, the barnacles attaching themselves to the side adding some extra hurt to a hit from one of these fins, and they can use their pectoral fins as part of their feeding methods. You can see in the photos that most of the humpbacks in the area have white pigmentation on the underside of their flippers, but the tops are dark. By rotating these in the water, it might scare the fish and krill that they feed on, corralling them in front of the humpbacks and making for an easy meal. Today, it seemed like the activity from the whales was likely playful, as the three of them moved together in the water, looking to be socializing as they went.

Finally, we had Professor X and Velvet. Although nearby to these socializing whales, their behaviour was much different, focusing on feeding in these nutrient-rich waters instead of being social. This is by far the most common thing that we see from the humpback whales in our water, with the calmer, rhythmic motion of the whales surfacing before diving beneath the surface for food being the primary purpose for the humpbacks being here. BC is their feeding grounds, so they migrate here over the summer months to build up their fat reserves before travelling the nearly 6,000 km to either Hawaii or Mexico, their breeding/calving grounds. While here, they are trying to build up this fat since down south there isn’t as much food available to them and burning through their reserves becomes their primary source of energy. It’s estimated that nearly 18-20 hours of the humpback’s day are spent in the feeding grounds, so we were super lucky to see more social and playful behaviours from most of the whales spotted today. Perhaps all the other whales that we saw today have been here a little bit longer than these two and already have a strong base to their fat reserves, and can afford to be a bit more playful? Who knows, but we know it was fantastic to see such a variety of behaviour from the whales today. Each time we spend time with the whales, it’s like getting a snapshot of their day, a small window into how these whales spend their lives while travelling here in British Columbia. We always feel so privileged to learn more about these animals and spend time with them while they spend their time here! Throughout all these encounters with the whales and other wildlife, the Marine Naturalists Aly Kohlman, Hayleigh Hilbert, and Jordan Robinson captured some great photos which are all available below!

August 1, 2025, 10:30 AM - Humpbacks everywhere you look!

Watson and Scuba

Kappa, calf, Vanta, Velvet and Professor X

Other Wildlife