Some days, the salty mist plays tricks on your eyes, tossing up shapes and shadows with the promise of a story just beneath the waves. That’s just the kind of day it was when Ryan first made a splash on the scene off Horse Chops—big, bold, and beautiful, quick to remind everyone that not every traveller in these waters fancies a straight line.

Ryan, a grand female, cut a zigzag path through the waters of Newfoundland and Labrador that August. She first turned heads near Horse Chops, then popped up around Catalina a few days later. A brief hello in Green Bay, and before you knew it, there she was back at Horse Chops again, tracing the coast with the patience only a humpback can muster.

Come spring, word of her wanderings stretched even further. The brisk fjords of Eyjafjörður in Northeast Iceland became her playground in May of 2019, proving Ryan’s love affair with the North Atlantic’s more mysterious reaches. She stayed a week, perhaps catching up with old acquaintances or simply sampling the cool air and northern waves.

Years slipped by. There’s no telling where she vanished to in the deep blue stretches, but Ryan surfaced again in July 2022 near Mobile Bay. Then, when summer’s call grew strong, she delighted the shores of Witless Bay and Bay Bulls in 2024—twice in a single week, as if double-checking that the capelin were running just right. When July 2025 rolled in, she was spotted off Lower Cove Head—still adding chapters to her remarkable tale.

What paths does Ryan weave beneath the surface? From fjords to fog banks, her journey is an open secret waiting for those who watch with patient eyes.