Dreamer’s 2021 Calf near Active Pass fluking and cruising on its side on 8/14/26, by Lincoln Humphry
August 11 – Naturalist Elliot
T18’s are back!
We started off strong with some sea lions on the red cans at Sinclair Island, then went through the middle and caught up with the T18s (T19, T19B, T19C) near Jones Island. They are called the T18s because during the initial orca survey, T18 Esperanza and T19 Nootka were documented separately and it was later discovered that they are mother and daughter. T19 is now estimated to be over 70 yrs old, and her two sons T19B Galiano and T19C Spouter are both full grown and VERY large bulls.
We watched them do laps around Jones while spyhopping, foraging, tail slapping and blowing bubbles. So much fun! A little bittersweet thinking about how all of these whales range from middle aged to elderly, and with no surviving female calves in this generation, these three will be the last of the T19 matriline.
August 12 – Naturalist Elliot
T party!
We got word in the morning of some Biggs orcas southbound from Victoria, which is a stretch for us anyway, and if they’re headed that way, there is a good chance they are headed to open ocean. As the morning passed, more and more boats were joining the group of whales, and with the changing tide going against them to slow them down towards us, we decided to roll the dice and go for it.
By the time we caught up to them they were west of Hein Bank. Among the group were the T19s, T36 & T36B’s, T46B’s & T49A’s. 21 whales in total. We watched them breaching, cartwheeling and tail-slapping up a storm for almost an hour, and even got an up close breach from T19B Galliano.
We had a long run home without much spare time, but were lucky enough to see a lone humpback in San Juan Channel in the distance as we passed by. Quickly stopped for some sleepy Steller sea lions on the way home, and rounded out an epic day with a full on T-Party!
August 13 – Naturalist Elliot
Today we went west to a report of three killer whales near Spieden Island.
We punched through the fog in Rosario Strait and made it to clear skies in the inner Islands. We made it to where another boat had picked up the T19s near Roche Harbor and they were pretty sleepy to begin with, but once we got into the Wasp Islands (harbor seal territory) they got pretty active!
Foraging and feeding throughout the islands for the next hour gave us quite the show.
However, there was lots of personal boat traffic transiting fast through the area, and it was time for us and our PWWA boats to exercise our “sentinel actions” as we call it: basically taking proactive measures to protect whales. We were waving our whale flags and laying on the horns to alert other boaters to the presence of the whales. We needed to get home and head the same way we left, but were able to make time for harbor seals at Peapod Rocks and a bald eagle lurking too.
August 14 – Naturalist Elliot
Shortly after we left the dock with sunny, calm conditions and stopped at Viti Rocks for harbor seals. There were lots of moms and pups, and we observed a mom nursing two pups at the same time. I’d never seen that before! After that we saw a male and female Steller napping on a navigational marker near Sinclair Island, then a report came in that there were orcas in Cross Sound pointed into Eastsound at Orcas Island. By the time we got there, they had been identified as the T18’s. It’s been nice to have these epic historical individuals around this week. They were spread far, and each of the boys were hugging the shoreline on either side of the sound with mom in the middle. We got to follow them all the way up to town at the north end of Eastsound before they ran out of water and had to turn around.
August 14 – Naturalist Quincy & Lincoln
We started the day with no reliable reports, other than a few orcas getting lost in the heavy fog layer down south, so we headed for Viti Rocks to check out some harbor seals to get started on our search for whales up north. As we made our way around the northeast side of Orcas Island, a report came in of a humpback in Active Pass, decently fair into Canadian waters, and the boat couldn’t stay on scene with it, so it was a bit of a gamble. Being the only report in the area that had good visibility, we went for it.
As we closed in on the pass, we saw distinct spouts and fluking! No issue of tracking down this whale. Relieved after B-lining for Active Pass, we dialed in with this individual to try and identify it and get some nice sights. It was close to the BC ferry channel, big boats, so we made sure they knew where the whale was, and gave it and the boat some berth.
We then lucked out with close surfacings and consistent tail flukes that let us snag good shots of the fluke markings that are easiest for identifying humpbacks. It was Dreamer’s 2021 calf with the current designation of CRC-20243. We don’t get a lot of chances to ID whales so this was a fun first for us! We saw this whale go on its side once! Fairly rare for a humpback. It wasn’t long before we had to head home to complete our 75 nautical mile round trip adventure.
August 16 – Naturalist Kara
We found a T-party at Saturna Island this morning!
We were heading toward a humpback whale report up toward Active Pass in the Strait of Georgia, when we saw orcas riding the wake of a tanker ship in the traffic lanes! As we slowed down to approach and come on scene, we could really see how playful these whales were! Lots of breaching and tail slapping, just having a good time.
As the first boat with the whales, we worked on some identification to make sure we were seeing Biggs orcas, since we were with a pretty large group. A large male helped us get that ID really quick, because his fin is pretty iconic out here: T19B Galiano. His fin is very wide at the base, has a pretty large notch in the middle and flops a bit at the top! We saw him with his brother T19C Spouter as our closer set of whales, and knew then that we had at least 2 pods of orcas!
Our incredible group today ended up with nine whales: three from the T18’s (Nootka, Galiano and Spouter) and 6 from the T49A’s (Nan, Nat, Neptune, Nebula, Charlie 2 and Nimbus). There was a lot of breaching, peduncle throws, tail slaps and spyhops as well as some upside down swimming! There was a possibility of some mating behaviour, so we’ll have to keep our eye on the T49A’s 18 months from now. It doesn’t get much better than a whale watch like this!
