Mothers and their calves ~ Humpback Whales and Porpoises!

Our tour began amongst the rocks and small islands with excellent viewing of Bald Eagles, Belted Kingfishers and Harbour Seals. There was not a breath of wind and the air was warm but thin banks of fog moved gently around the channels. As we cruised in and out of it we came across a massive male Steller sea lion and then, a sleeping humpback whale. After several minutes of watching this whale and listening to it breath, it lifted its tail fluke high out of the water and we recognized it as Guardian, a whale we have known for several years now. We could hear more humpback whales blowing in the distance and eventually they too came into view. Two of them turned out to be Humpless (aka Slash) and her six month old calf. After surfacing together for several minutes the calf became interested in a patch of floating seaweed and spent some time rolling in it while its mother swam on. We dropped the hydrophone and could hear the two of them calling back and forth to each other while they were separated. Once they joined up again we carried on and found a few groups of Dall's porpoises. The first group contained two adults and a newborn animal that was smaller than a large salmon. As we were leaving, one of them came over to the boat and for the next 5 minutes swam along under the bow. It was a fantastic way to end an absolutely beautiful trip!