Sara
So, we decided to go to the northern part of Vancouver Island, to a small community called Telegraph Cove. It is in a well-known or near a well-known whale area, sort of near Port McNeill, Port Hardy, and it’s just north of the Johnston strait where the Robson Bight Michael Biggs Ecological Reserve is,
Nicole
And where the first sort of modern Whale Watch Company was born in British Columbia,
Sara
And I guess the reason we picked Telegraph and also the time of the year was because in late August and other times of the year, it is a good time to see both humpbacks as they migrate through and also Northern Resident Killer whales as they eat some salmon so yeah, it was a spectacular day, and, like, surrounded by many days of like, fog and rain, and then we just had, like, perfect whale watching weather.
Lindsay
Yes. By the time we got down to the dock for our afternoon, the rain had cleared and it was sunny and glassy calm. And even our naturalist/captain was amazed at how good the weather was, which is always a nice sign.
Sara
Yeah, basically, he was saying, if it’s not foggy, it’s because it’s super windy. But we somehow managed flat seas and like, amazing visibility. So that was delightful, yeah,
Nicole
Which kind of led to some delightful encounters. And I have to say, like we and I think it’s really important when you go whale watching, to go with really low expectations, yeah, and also to do your research about who you’re going out with, to make sure that you’re doing that in the least impactful way you can to say that this trip and the sightings we had, like surpassed my expectations, doesn’t do it justice. It was incredible. Having done this, not just the not just the podcast, not just the website, but like, been a naturalist myself for so many years. Even though it’s been a lot of years since I’ve done it, this trip would absolutely rank in some of the top, top sightings I’ve ever had. It was really beautiful and really special.
Sara
Yeah, really delightful. We were on an open Zodiac boat. So it was a small group, just one staff person, like Captain/naturalist, and 12 passengers. So yeah, we were in a nice small group, which was perfect, because, yeah, we just got to have some really nice, quiet, beautiful moments at sea.
Lindsay
I think that was the biggest part, it was so quiet and like, yeah, it’s always quiet when you’re on a boat and the motor’s off, but it was just more quiet. It’s such an interesting thing that you don’t notice. Yeah, when it’s normal quiet in the city, it’s never actually quiet.
Sara
I think also because of the layout of the boat, like it was just three rows, so all you could do is, like, sit down or stand up. You can really move around. Yeah, so that was also part of the like, calmness. But yeah, we started out by, I guess. Well, we saw some, I think we saw the Steller sea lions first, right? Yeah,
Lindsay
Yep, it was a familiar smell. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, they’re huge. And then we came across a couple of humpbacks that were just kind of traveling, so we didn’t stay very long with them,
Nicole
Because they’re doing their humpback thing, yeah
Lindsay
At that moment when we stopped to see the first humpbacks, we had gotten a report that there were Northern Residents not too far away, yeah. So we went to we went to find them,
Nicole
And they were doing my favorite thing that killer whales do. They were in a resting line, which, if you have never been lucky enough to see a resting line. It is really moving. And I mean that, like personally moving, the resting line does travel, but it’s really slow. What a resting line of killer whales looks like. And what they’re doing is they are resting. That’s what its called a resting line. But the whole group, the whole pod, all the family members, line up next to each other, all in one sort of parallel line. So what was the group that we had Linds? Did you remember which ones they were?
Lindsay
Yes, so it’s a little bit sporadic. But we had the A61s as well as the A25s. Individuals were A34 A55 A67 and also the A34s were there. I don’t understand how Northern Residents work, so that’s the list that I made. And if that doesn’t make sense to anyone, it doesn’t make sense to me either. But yeah, we had some A pod, A clan?
Sara
A clan, yeah. And then I think part of it was there’s just like our naturalist suspicion, based on what was happening, like on the radio, was that there was more of a pod was further south of us, or more of this, more of these matrilines were further south, yes. So, they’d kind of like, there was one matriline that was all together, and then there was, like a random assortment of others from another matriline that were just like, sort of traveling with this group, but the run like, so that’s kind of why it was a bit of a random assortment,
Lindsay
Yeah, because there were two big males and there, yeah, one was from the matriline that was all present, and the other one was from somebody else that had just kind of joined them for this little nap.
Nicole
And as a group, there was between nine and 12 of them. Then what they do is they all line up right next to each other, one right after the other, and they synchronize their breathing so they what they’re doing is resting, which for toothed whales, means they have usually one eye closed and they’re kind of resting half of their brain, and then they can switch and rest the other half of their brain, which is what toothed whales can do instead of fully falling asleep like we do. But they don’t do a lot while they are resting in that way. So, they synchronize their breathing, and they come up for one breath, and then they go down not too far. They’re not doing any deep dives or any really energetic swimming, and then they travel a little bit, and they all come up for another breath, and then they go down again. And it’s such a beautiful and peaceful thing to watch and to hear, I think is the other thing. It’s incredible to see them. All three of us haven’t seen, I mean, I hadn’t seen killer whales in a really long time. Northern residents would have been even longer. But to hear them, and to hear all of the pops of breath, one right after the other, it’s, yeah, it’s magical.
Lindsay
Peaceful. Except, I think it was A67 is the calf. She’s about a year old, and so the magical pop, pop, pop, and the like iconic, like everybody coming out, and the huge, big fins of the bulls that you see on, like Ferry commercials and all that stuff was super magical. But then there’s a calf who doesn’t still know where her blowhole is. And then she was just PFFFT.
Sara
Yeah. Basically, like, two thirds of her body comes out of the water, yeah, yeah. Because yeah, just so it’s like, they’re not as good at breathing
Lindsay
It’s like, quiet, nine magical blows all in succession, and then one baby, like, just jumping in on the water, going, BLAH! So, we stayed with them for an amount of time,
Sara
45 minutes?
Lindsay Curtis
I think so it was a nice, good chunk of time they again, they did not move very far, yeah. So it was just very relaxing to just watch them and also, like while they were under, to just sit on, be on a boat in calm, sunny weather. That was really great, beautiful. Yeah, and then we kept going again, our naturalist was very good at telling us where we were.
Sara
We were basically in Blackfish sound.
Lindsay
So, we went through because he had heard about more humpbacks. While we were going, we could see humpback blows coming towards us
Sara
Yeah. They were sort of in like all directions in front of us.
Lindsay
So we got to the spot where, like, there were some other boats, and so turned the engine off again, and they just started coming for us basically We were literally surrounded by humpback whales. And it was insane, because, again, like, engine was off, it was so quiet, so they were just all over the place, just blows, like, almost as well, in a continuous motion, even though they weren’t swimming together, it just kind of seemed that way.
Sara
So many of them, yeah, and like, you’d see one like, way out in the distance and be like, Oh, but there’s like 10 or more, like 100 times closer, yeah,
Nicole
In every direction we looked, yeah, there were humpbacks all again, appropriately distanced away, so none came too close, but close enough, and I lost track after 12,
Lindsay
Yeah, I wasn’t even counting.
Sara
Yeah, yeah. It was hard to tell, like, which one was, which there was. We did notice, though there was a pair, that it seemed pretty clear that it was a mother and, like, older calf, like, not a tiny calf. And then, yeah, so then the other there was another boat from the same company that was like, sort of nearby, but not like, actually close, but they started seeing, like, all the seabirds start, like, sort of swarming. So there was the seabirds floating on the water, and then the seagulls were coming around. And so our naturalist was telling us that that’s basically a sign that the whales are underwater, sort of building up, like corralling all the fish into like a bait ball. And then we started, you know, casually focused on that area. And then all of a sudden, we saw them lunge feeding.
Lindsay
First we were waiting. And we were all like, watching for that bubbling water where there were birds and a humpback full breached out of the water behind us. and we all like, turned around, and saw like just the end of it, yeah.
Sara
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we got distracted by a massive breach behind us. But it’s okay. We didn’t, like, miss and all the breaches spoilers, because yeah, so we were watching, so the lunge feed happened, and, like, the two whales lunged out, and then all of a sudden there was like, another whale, or maybe one of those whales, also breaching. And so like, in the background of watching lunge feeding was a humpback breaching.
Lindsay
Yeah. It was, I think it was the calf, because he was doing multiple times. It was like one of those breaches, where he had breaches a couple times, and then it was like, just head lunging because he was tired, but he still had to get his beans out, basically. And yeah. And it was just like, even the naturalist was like, I don’t know where to look.
Sara
Yeah. Like, I don’t know what’s happening. Like, you know, it’s impressive when your naturalist is kind of overwhelmed by all the things happening.
Lindsay
And then they chilled out, but then they did some more lunch feeding, and then the calf was sporadically breaching, but he was traveling all over, so it was hard to, like, figure out where he was going to come up next. At one point, we did turn the motor on, because the naturalist is like he’s kind of coming right for us while he’s in his breaching. So, we’re just going to back up a little bit. Yeah, he did not actually come anywhere near us, but always better to be safe.
Sara
We sort of ended up being very surrounded by whales. And yeah, it’s better to only be surrounded around like three and a half sides by whales.
Lindsay
Yeah. And while that was all happening, there was still like a dozen other humpbacks just kind of traveling, or chill feeding, just breathing and doing their thing.
Sara
Yeah and there was occasional lunging, too, elsewhere. Yeah, it was absolutely delightful.
Nicole
It was unbelievable
Lindsay
Yeah. And the naturalist was like, Okay, I think we can leave there’s no whales behind us. And yeah, because that was what we were waiting for. We were just basically we were stuck. And so we turned around, and then there was, like, whales all around us again
Sara
And like, the whole way home, we kept seeing more.,
Lindsay
We just kept pointing, just pointing constantly, like, here’s one, there’s another one, there’s another and we just, we stopped, stopping for them. Like, not, yeah, in a dangerous way, but just, like, we had to go home.
Sara
So yeah, we were out for three hours. And it, it did not feel like three hours. It was, it was like, actually the perfect length of time. Yeah,
Lindsay
It was absolutely incredible. We saw some harbor porpoises on the way back, just doing their sneaky little harbor porpoise thing. And that was our trip.
Nicole
It was the best
Sara
Yeah. Anyways, highly recommend going out to the middle of nowhere with your best friends and looking for whales.
Lindsay
Yes.
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