The sun was shining overhead, and we had three boats out ready to search the Salish Sea for whales. The great thing about watching the whales that we do is that they are wild and free; they don’t have any trackers and tags that give away their location. When we head out into the water, we don’t know where the whales will be or what they might be doing when we find them. We search for them starting fresh each day, with just our eyes trained to find them.

This was exactly what happened when we went out today. We spread out, the boats covering different areas of the water, when one of them spotted blows in the distance; we had found whales! As we drew closer, we knew the blows we were seeing were from humpback whales.

It turned out to be two whales travelling together that we found: Thunderbolt (BCY1517) and BCY0940calf2025. We were able to identify Thunderbolt while we were on scene with the whales, but the other one took a little more work. We had spotted this whale once before, earlier in the year, and the ID remained elusive, but this time we were able to match the dorsal fin and check the fluke to confirm that it was a young whale, Wolf Eels calf from 2025. This whale doesn’t have a nickname or its own number yet because of its age. Cross-matching calves can be difficult, especially since, in the first year, calves are less likely to show off their tails. It takes a while to develop the muscles to lift those giant tails into the air, which won’t usually happen for the first year or so. Now, this whale was lifting its tail beautifully, which made this cross-match just a little bit easier.

They and Thunderbolt seemed to be having a lot of fun at the surface, playing with each other and rolling around. We saw glimpses of their pectoral fins and rostrums as they went, making for an exciting time.

We spotted another humpback around the same time; this one was one we hadn’t seen before during our tour: Kiarra Kelly (BCX2473). This whale seemed to be feeding in the area, lifting their tail high out of the water to propell their feeding dives. Humpbacks are here to eat, feeding on up to 3,000 pounds of small schooling fish and Krill each day. Kiarra Kelly is a whale that isn’t always feeding in BC; it has also been cross-matched with California. This isn’t very common to see them switching feeding grounds like this, although it’s not unheard of. Other whales have done this as well, but humpbacks typically have very high site fidelity, meaning they return to the same spot year after year for both the feeding grounds and the breeding grounds. This makes it all the more special to have seen this oddball whale during the tour today.

In addition to these whales, the boats stopped at Stinky Rock, where they saw two pinniped species. The larger of the two species, the Steller Sea Lions, were lounging on the rocks in large numbers while the Harbour Seals were nearby in a smaller group on the beach. While they are both pinnipeds, these species prefer slightly different haul-out locations due to their terrestrial movement styles. Since seals' hips are fused, they can’t walk on their flippers as a sea lion can; instead, they have to move by gallumping, which is much more awkward. This difficulty moving is why they are found in areas with less shoreline slope, whereas sea lions can go wherever they like.

To end the trip, one of the vessels spotted a few more whales. The first group was a pair of female whales travelling together: Slits (BCY0946) and Poptart (BCY1014). These two seemed to be feeding in the area. We didn’t stay with them too long since they were diving for a relatively long time and we were nearing the end of the trip. The final encounter, however, was a pretty special one. Although this humpback was behaving in the same way as the other whales, their ID was something that got our crew excited: it was Starry Knight (BCX0915calf2024)! The last time we saw Starry Knight, they were in poor health after being entangled twice in a single month in 2025. These entanglements left them with deep incisions and lasting scars, and their body was covered in lice and barnacles. Due to this poor body condition, we weren’t sure if they would survive the winter months, but Starry Knight showed us just how resilient these humpbacks are! The Marine Naturalist Jordan snapped as many photos as possible to confirm it was them and to track their progress in healing before they had to leave them behind and return to the dock.

It was a great day on the water, and everyone returned to Nanaimo happy with all the wildlife they spotted. Please enjoy the photos included below, captured throughout the tour by Marine Naturalists Aly Kohlman, Hayleigh Hilbert, and Jordan Robinson!

July 14, 2026, 10:30 AM - Humpbacks, Humpbacks everywhere!

Thunderbolt and BCY0940calf2025

Kiarra Kelly

Stinky Rock

Slits and Poptart

Starry Knight