We were practically buzzing with excitement as we boarded our vessels, ready to get underway for our afternoon adventure. We had seen some whales heading north during the morning tour, so we planned to try to find them again that afternoon. Working with some other boats that were also exploring the area, we figured we had been successful since we spotted the tall black dorsal fin of orca in the distance. Once we got closer, it was clear that these weren’t the same whales that we had this morning; it was a whole new pod altogether! We grabbed our cameras and started snapping photos, quickly identifying the whales as the T002Cs. To surprise us even further, there was an extra whale in the mix that turned out to be T002B, Pedder.

You can probably tell this by looking at their numbers, but Pedder and Tasu are actually sisters! They don’t usually travel together now, but they did when they were younger. Matrilines of orcas are usually pretty tight-knit, typically having the whales travelling together until the daughters start having their own calves and split off to form their own pod. The T002s were a little bit different, though. Pedder actually dispersed from the pod not long after Tasu was born, leaving the matriline in 1992. The family tie still seems to be there, though, as they are spotted together periodically over the years. Whales can go a fair amount of time without being spotted or the sightings being shared, so visits like these might be happening more frequently than we know. No matter how often it happens, we were happy to see them here together. Pedder is a lone female, so she is often travelling alone or with an unrelated family group. She tends to like spending time with the T060s, T090s, and the T109Bs.

Just like us, orcas are very social animals, and just because she doesn’t always travel with the same matriline, it doesn’t mean that the time spent socializing isn’t just as important for her. It did seem like these whales were focusing a bit on socializing as we watched them move through the water, with some surface activity from the group in the form of tail slaps as they travelled around. It was a great way to end our time with this ongoing family reunion.

Our adventure wasn’t over, though, as there were still humpbacks to be found! Each of our boats had its own humpback encounters. The covered boat spotted a group of three at first, Kaju (BCY1474), Vector (BCX2485), and Crackle (BCY1227), and then later a lone individual, Graphite (BCX2077). The open boat started with a trio of whales as well: Pingu (BCY1110), Zig Zag (BCX1193), and Olympus (BCX2075), but Pingu left the group pretty quickly and continued on without the other two. All of these whales seemed to be feeding in the area, spending time below the surface chasing down their food before returning to filter through their catch and catch their breath once again. Each of these whales needs to consume a staggering amount of food, about 3,000 pounds daily. That means, combined, these 7 whales would be eating 21,000 pounds of food. And it's likely even more than they need, since 2 of these whales are known females and are likely currently pregnant, which requires about 1.5 times the energy they need when they’re not. It’s a testament to the sheer biomass present in BC that we can sustain so many of these behemoths and their large appetites. This influx of food is seasonal, with warm summer weather encouraging plankton blooms that form the base of this amazing food chain. Humpbacks also help with this bloom, since they bring nutrients from the depths and deposit them at the surface, another important building block for plankton. Phytoplankton requires sunlight and nutrients for their growth, which they get plenty of with the help of the whales. It’s an incredible positive feedback loop with humpback recovery, since the more whales return, the more they change their environment to provide more food. Hopefully, we will continue to watch this population recover over time.

Finally, both boats spent time with Steller Sea Lions. Steller Sea Lions are the largest species of sea lion in the world, with males reaching up to 2,500 pounds when fully grown and females closer to 800 pounds. With large size comes a large appetite, just like humpback whales. Steller Sea lion females may be eating up to 50 pounds of food each day, while males might need about 75 pounds. They hunt a wide variety of fish species to meet this energy requirement, including seasonal treats like salmon and herring, and both come closer to shore to spawn. The sea lions tend to return and leave our waters tied to the timing of such events, with the salmon run in particular being an important food source after the adult males may have gone a few months without feeding during their breeding season. Since they need to defend territory on the beach, they can’t leave to grab a bite to eat without risking losing their spot.

We headed back toward Nanaimo after our sea lion encounters, pondering the amazing biomass the Salish Sea supports as the sunset painted the sky along the way. Throughout these encounters, the onboard Marine Naturalists Hayleigh Hilbert and Evan Hessels captured some great photos, which are included below!

August 21, 2026, 3:30 PM - An Orca family Reunion plus Humpback Soup 🍲

T002B and the T002Cs

The White Islets

Zig Zag and Olympus

Kaju, Vector, and Crackle

The Halibut Bank ODAS Buoy