We had all three of our boats leaving Nanaimo on this blistery morning. The sun was shining overhead, which was lucky since we were about to get wet! With the bit of wind comes waves, but that doesn’t stop us! We find quite often that the waves bring energy into the wildlife! Today we started the search, hoping to spot some of the whales that had been spotted recently in the area. Our boats spread out, with two heading right into the Strait of Georgia while one turned south to search for a different report. Luckily, today, both boats had success, and we ended up finding humpback whales!

The boat that went south found a yet-to-be-identified humpback whale, but we’ve been seeing them throughout the year so far. They seem to be a younger whale, likely only a year or two old. Hopefully, we will be able to cross-match this little one soon! They were travelling close to Gabriola Island, which was very cool to see! At one point, they seemed like they were travelling in only a few meters of water. There must have been lots of food for them, though, since they had a lot of energy and we saw them jumping or breaching out of the water multiple times. It was super exciting!

While one boat was watching this exciting little humpback, the other two boats had their own energetic humpback whale: Pingu (BCY1110)! There must have been something in the water today (likely the energy being infused into them by the waves)! Pingu was also breaching out of the water, and we even saw them slapping their pectoral fins against the surface a few times.

Seeing all this energetic behaviour is always very exciting and impressive, especially considering how much energy it takes. For the smaller whale, it wouldn’t necessarily be as much, but Pingu is close to (if not already) fully grown, meaning it would weigh nearly 35 tonnes. The energy it would have taken them to jump out of the water like that would be the same as a human running a marathon! On a day like this, it might have been that these whales were doing it just for fun, although they could be trying to dislodge parasites or communicate over long distances as well. No matter why they do it, we enjoyed watching them acting so playfully in the waves! But all good things must come to an end, so we left the respective whales to their adventures and we continued on our own.

Two of the boats continued south to Stinky Rock, where they got to see the Harbour Seals basking in the sun and the Steller Sea Lions piled high on the southern section of the rocks. While watching these pinnipeds, we got word from our other boat that they had spotted something else on their way over to Stinky: a pod of Orca!

These orca turned out to be the T101s, a mother travelling with her two adult sons.

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

These whales also seemed to have a little extra pep in their step compared to normal, likely due to the waves again. We got to see not only the huge black dorsal fins as they surfaced, but they were also sticking most of their rostrums out of the water as they went. When they do this, they tend to show off more of the white markings they have, like their eye patch and white chins! You also tend to see more of their saddle patches (the white/grey patch behind their dorsal fins) as they move through the waves. Most of our staff would tell you that going out in the waves is one of their favourite tours!

We didn’t stick around with the T101s for too long before continuing back to Nanaimo, but the time we spent was absolutely amazing! Please enjoy all the photos taken throughout the tour by the onboard Marine Naturalists, Val Watson, Hayleigh Hilbert, and Jordan Robinson, available below.

August 31, 2025, 10:30 AM - Humpbacks enjoying the waves, plus the T101s

Unknown Humpback

Pingu

Stinky Rocks

The T101s