On October 6, the sound of a humpback breathing somewhere off the shore near September Morn beach cued Michelle Taylor to pull out her telescope. Once spotted, Taylor followed the whale as it slept, floating along with the current towards Whycliff park. Taylor says the whale was woken up by the ferry heading to Nanaimo.
“After that, it swam around the bay for about an hour,” says Taylor.
That’s when her friend Jaimie Franklin snapped the above photo.
Taylor sent the shot in to the Vancouver Aquarium’s Cetacean Sightings Network.
Coordinator Caitlin Birdsall told her the whale is known as Casseopia, because the “w” shape on the right fluke resembles the constellation.
Casseopia was first spotted in 2008, of the north coast of Vancouver Island, and has also been spotted near the north arm of the Fraser River and near Campbell River last year.
