Ocean Magic Adventure Sept 8 3:30

Today's Ocean Magic 3:30 trip found us only minutes from the Victoria inner harbour. Turns out that members of L & K pod were on the move across the waterfront eastbound towards San Juan Island. At first they were very spread apart, but did group up and started traveling quickly speed porpoising out of the water, it was an awesome sight! Big males porpoising out of the water together is such a momentous encounter. The animals crossed Victoria and continued past Discovery Island. Some breaches were seen by 1 big male (see photos) as well as more awesome group porpoising including one little wee one who would pop out of the water on their own (see video).

While repositioning the vessel, we stopped to look at a Stellar sealion who was busy feeding on some fish, and would also fling the fish around and tease the seagulls. We then caught up for another look at the last group of traveling killer whales, there were many whales in the area. After having a wonderful time with the killer whales, we ventured south west into the strait in search of humpbacks! Low and behold we found my favorite humpback whale (known as Bart who has a split fin) who was probably with his mother together lounging about. It's amazing for me to see my favorite baleen cetacean and to know that he has returned again - this will be his 4th year in our area. Awesome trip!

Ocean Magic Adventure : Friendly humpbacks

This trip is at the top of my 5 best whale watching experiences. One individual as pointed out in the video (we call him all kinds of names) is very friendly. Being a young male, no doubt like any child, loves to play and clearly the same goes for a humpback whale kid! We didn't have to go far to find them. Today our awesome humpbacks were hanging out just mins from the inner harbour, 4 of them in total. They were split into 2 pairs. When we arrived, Bart / Cleaver / Split fin was off with a buddy and a sealion and started to act quite dynamically as a group. Before long, the animals all came over to the boat and hung out with us for quite sometime! They were checking us out for sure, they were under us and even what seemed to be waving at us! And when one of the zodiacs arrived, the animals went over to their boat and did the same, as if to not leave them out! The 3 year old after rolling on his side - blew his spray all over me, all over my camera and in fact I ended up inhaling whale breath!!!!! Yes I could taste it through the entire trip, first time and to me that is as good as a whale kiss can get! We headed towards Race Rocks, while stopping to watch the other 2 humpbacks, one of them being Barts mom! They were fluking and were interacting with one another but didn't seem too concerned with us as the last pair was.

On the way to the lighthouse, we were engaged by a small group of Dalls porpoises who rode along side of us momentarily. We arrived to Race Rocks to find our pinniped friends all lazing about, barking, and doing their usual territorial matches. On our way back to Victoria, we once again got an amazing glimpse of the Dalls porpoise who rode along side of us. As what I guess I would call a professional whale watcher, with several years of watching - this rates up at the very top... People on board that day will never forget it as long as they live. It was truly magic.

Photos from Marie O'Shaughnessy

More beautiful captures by our Guest Marie. As you can see from the photos, humpback whales are quite active lately. What a blessing to witness such a spectacle. Thank you for sharing as I am land locked in concrete jungle - TORONTO!