After pushing off the dock, our fleet began exploring the northern part of our range for the start of today’s adventure. It was quite toasty out, so it was perfect to complement the waves and splash!

After receiving an early morning report of a possible orca sighting near Qualicum Beach, we headed that way and began scanning around. With no confirmed sightings yet, we had to keep our eyes extra sharp! The fleet spread out, scanning and scanning and scanning. Our open vessel, Keta, hung back a bit, searching around Nanaimo and North Nanaimo while Cascadia and Kula headed north. Kula located three humpbacks and stopped for a bit, while Cascadia kept pushing further north to keep on peeking around.

Kula’s trio of humpbacks was occasionally fluking and travelling around, and tail swishing as they were busily associating and diving together. Our Naturalist on board began snapping photos of their flukes and dorsals to confirm their identities. Much to our surprise, these three were identified as Kappa (BCX0158), Kappiroto (BCX0158calf2025), and Apollo (BCY0862). This sighting was surprising, as Kappa and Kappiroto had been travelling together just off Gabriola Island for nearly a month now. It seems like they have decided to change their ways, as they were much further north today than usual. Their friend, Apollo, was also an exciting sighting as she officially became a grandmother this year! Apollo was also spotted defecating on the surface, which led to a giant red ‘cloud’ of feces becoming visible as we floated by!

Cascadia’s northern escapades proved fruitless, and they ended up looping back towards where Kula’s humpbacks had been spotted. They made their way over, but to their surprise, a different pair of humpbacks was spotted instead! These two were busy travelling along, blowing and diving, and raising their flukes high up in the air. These two were Tempest (BCX0837) and Crater/Mensa (BCX1565). Tempest is a known female, with at least four confirmed calves sighted through the years. Crater is somewhat of a mystery, with their first confirmed sighting dating back to 2013, and their gender is still unconfirmed.

While Cascadia and Kula spent their time with the humpbacks, Keta relocated the orca that had been spotted earlier that day. They had travelled quite far southbound and were spotted east of Nanaimo! They were travelling very fast, making their way out into the Strait of Georgia, as we found them. They were being quite tricky, and at first, they were zipping back and forth. We were able to get some photos of their dorsals, though, and we confirmed these whales as the T036Bs:

T036 Flapjack ♀ (≤1970)
T036B Tattertip ♀ (1998)
T036B1 Bhotia ♀ (2009)
T036B1A Maple ♀ (2025)
T036B2 Greenfelder ♀ (2013)
T036B4 Auk ♂ (2024)

After catching word of our orca sighting, Cascadia and Kula began making their way south to join up with Keta, hoping to have an orca sighting of their own.

Flapjack and her family were likely chasing after a porpoise while we observed them, as they kept changing direction quickly. This can lead to challenging conditions in terms of tracking where the whales will travel, but we always try our best! Because our whales are wild and do not have any trackers or tags on them, they can sometimes disappear without a trace, even when we believe we are on scene with them. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what our orca did today. Even with eyes on scene, sometimes they can simply vanish! We scanned and scanned, but once we determined they were no longer around, we continued on our way.

After departing from our tricky whales, we began venturing around to find other wildlife. Stinky Rocks, a rocky islet by Valdez Island, was full of our loud and proud Steller Sea Lions. These rambunctious pinnipeds can often be seen belching and pushing each other around. Stinky Rocks is a perfect area for our sea lions to stretch out and enjoy the sunshine, resting up before they need to hunt and feed again.

Besides our sea lions, another commonly spotted pinniped in our area is the Harbour Seals, and we were able to locate some of them too! Harbour Seals have a fairly sedentary (somewhat inactive) lifestyle, spending many of their hours galumphing along, snoozing, and just enjoying the sunshine. We still have some nursing young pups around as well (check out a photo of this below)! Once we wrapped up our time with our pinnipeds, we began venturing back towards home port. Cascadia made one final stop at the beautiful Gabriola Bluffs to have a peek at our nesting Cormorants high up on the rocky edges before heading back into Nanaimo Harbour!

Today’s photos were taken by Marine Naturalists Val Watson, Cheyenne Brewster, and Hayleigh Hilbert.

August 21, 2025, 10:30 AM - Exploring the North