July 15, 2026

The smokey haze from the Canadian wildfires lingered again today, making for some interesting lighting offshore. Although I knew it was mid-morning, it felt like 7:30 at night. Maybe that’s why I felt so tired today!

This morning, we found three humpback whales. The first was taking short dives and slowly traveling to the west. 

Next, we found our familiar friend, Owl. She was doing a bit of feeding at the surface, and soon, another humpback whale joined her! At first, Owl didn’t seem to enjoy the company. She began to pick up speed while the other whale seemed to keep following her. But eventually they began surfacing together without the fast movements.

We passed by a couple of blows on our way home. One was likely another humpback whale. The other was too far to determine the species.

This afternoon, we started by visiting the area where we had passed by whales on the way home from our morning trip. Our first sighting was that of a pair of huge fin whales!! Seeing just one fin whale alongside the boat is amazing, but to have a pair was incredible! At least one of the pair had been seen in the past few days so it’s nice to know they are still in the area!

Next we found the first of five humpback whales seen throughout the trip. We hung out with this for a bit and soon it was joined by another humpback- Downsweep again! Apparently Downsweep likes to hang out with other whales as it was seen with a different whale on our morning trip!

In the distance, we saw Owl again! She was alternating feeding bouts with cat naps! After she dove near us, we shut down our engines and just floated along waiting for her to reappear. This was a magical moment. Several minutes of complete silence. I wasn’t babbling on the microphone, our guests onboard were quietly awaiting Owl’s return to the surface. Several more minutes….and then WOOSH! Owl surfaced within 20 meters of our stern! And then she took another nap. Whale behavior truly intrigues me, especially when it involves one of our regulars choosing to hang out with us.

On our way home, we saw a couple more spouts to the west of us. One of them did a short stint of surface feeding, and to my happy surprise, this was another humpback whale - Spoon!  But unlike Spoon’s notorious behavior of being slow-moving, she was charging all over and lunged out of the water several times! Beautiful!

We got a quick look at a minke whale while we headed home, and finally that thick haze from the wildfires blew through and the sun was shining brightly, just as it should.