As we left the dock with all three of our boats on this lovely morning, we could sense that there was excitement in store for us as we explored the Salish Sea. We decided to head out into the Strait of Georgia first, since there were some shore-based reports of Humpback Whales spending time in the area. Good thing we did, as we had our boats spotting two groups of humpback whales at nearly the same time. One was a pair who seemed to be travelling through the area: Geometry (BCZ0338) and Apollo (BCY0862), and the other was two younger whales, Bagheera (BCY1471) and Moraine (BCY1465), who were having a little bit more fun in the bit of waves that were present on the water today.

Bagheera in particular seemed to be full of energy when we first found them, and they were travelling alone at that point. They kept breaking the surface of the water, throwing their body out in a series of full breaching before continuing with throwing their tail in a series of cartwheels and tail slaps. It seems this caught the attention of another nearby whale, as that was when Moraine made their way over and joined in on the fun.

Now, it seemed that these two were playfully socializing, still showing those energetic bursts of activity at the surface. Since Geometry and Apollo were just travelling together at the surface, the boat that had found them eventually joined in with the more energetic youngsters. As the season progresses, you will notice a bit of an increase in activity level from the humpback whales, which makes sense considering that when they first return to our waters, it has been nearly 6 months since their last hearty meal. When they are down in their breeding grounds of either Hawaii or Mexico, their main source of energy comes from burning the fat reserves that they build during the time in their feeding grounds (here). This means that when they first return to the waters within our range in late spring/early summer, they are very focused on food consumption so that they can recover these energy reserves. As they continue to feed in our waters, consuming up to a tonne of food each day, the amount of fat they have stored will keep increasing, and they won’t have to conserve their energy as much. That being said, it does still go through a huge amount of energy to be doing all of what we saw today. Each time Bagheera breached (or jumped out of the water), they burned the same amount of energy that it would have taken you or me to have run a marathon. Granted, they are consuming a lot more calories than us, but thats still quite an impressive amount of energy used in a single action!

We find that younger whales like these (with Bagheera and Moraine both being only 4 years old) tend to have a bit more spare energy than the adults do, which makes sense. Since they are likely not reproductive yet, they don’t spend as much time in the breeding ground, and so they will go less time without eating. They are also smaller than the adult would be, since humpbacks are thought to reach full size by the time they are around 10-15 years old. This means less mass to throw out of the water, and therefore less energy to do so.

All of this activity from Bagheera and Moraine seemed to catch the attention of the nearby older whales, as we saw Geometry and Apollo come in close to the other two, but then they continued on, apparently unswayed to join in on the fun.

As we were watching the whales, we also got to see another fun pass by: The Nanaimo Bathtub Race was happening today! We watched as the racers sped by, relieved that these active whales and the boaters didn’t cross paths. They weren’t so lucky a couple of years ago, when one of our local humpbacks, Anvil, surfaced right in front of one of the racers, causing them to have to make a considerable course alteration to avoid collision. Luckily, both humans and humpbacks went unharmed that day!

At this point, we headed into the inside of the island, one boat doing a thorough search of the inner passageways, while the other two went out into the Strait of Georgia in search of more whales. All three boats did make one stop before finding more whales at Stinky Rock. There is usually lots of exciting wildlife here, from the noisy Steller Sea Lions that cause a rucus on the rocks, to the quieter Harbour Seals, peacefully drinking in the sunshine while hauled out nearby.

After the stop at the rocks, we headed into the Strait, with the different boats having more fabulous encounters with more humpback whales. There was more activity at the surface, with some of the animals breaching out of the water, while others were slapping their 5-meter-long pectoral fins against the surface. In total, among all the other groups of whales seen, we were able to locate five more humpbacks: Velvet (BCY1186), Squirrel/Smoke (BCX2183), Nike (BCX1337), Anvil (BCZ0410), and Hammer (BCY1222). In areas like this, where you can’t look in any direction without spotting a whale’s blow in the distance, we like to describe it as “Humpback Soup”! You can imagine a bowl of chicken noodle soup, but the humpbacks are the noodles! It is a very cool experience, especially considering how the humpback population was nearly decimated by whaling. Up until recently, it was rare to see the humpbacks in the area, but now it’s not uncommon to have these large congregations of these amazing animals!

Finally, our boats returned to Nanaimo, pleased with all of the amazing wildlife that they got to see during their time exploring the Salish Sea! Please enjoy all of the photos from the day available below, captured by the Marine Naturalists Desarae Poier, Hayleigh Hilbert, and Jordan Robinson.

July 27, 2025, 10:30 AM - Humpback whales having a blast east of Nanaimo