Video: A Whale of a Good Time

Friday, 20 August

Wolves of the Sea

Friday, 20 August: Part II

Captain Nolan: Can you commit a sin against an animal?
Priest: Why, you can commit a sin against a blade of grass. Sins are really against oneself.

From the movie, “Orca”

The wolf on the beach at Hallo Bay may not have cooperated with us, but I sure can’t say the same thing about the Wolves of the Sea — better known as Orcas or Killer Whales.

Following a lunch of fish & chips, we left Hallo Bay around 1:30p and began the crossing back to Kodiak. The Shelikof Strait was being good to us, but there was enough movement to rock me asleep for a good portion of the crossing. I woke to Mui bursting into the stateroom to tell me that there were Orcas up ahead. I was up in an instant and on deck with my camera. Boy, oh boy; what I time we had!

Most people’s knowledge of this magnificent ocean creature comes from either movies, like Orca (NOT my favorite movie, by the way) and Free Willy, or from captive animals that perform in places like SeaWorld. That’s a shame really as nothing can hold a candle to seeing them in the wild.

Here they come!

Orcas are a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Though some feed on fish only, others hunt marine mammals such as seals and sea lions, and even whales. Very social animals, they travel in family pods that range from 2 to 75 animals; sometimes even more. Some of the pods are resident; they don’t travel far and wide, and they mostly feed on fish and squid. Others are transient; they are the hunters that tend to travel in very small groups. Still others are considered to be offshore populations; they travel in big groups. (For those who’d like more information, you can start with this link, which includes audio files of the vocalization of Orcas.)

At first I thought there were four Orcas in the waters around us, but looking back through my photos, what I thought was a fourth dorsal fin might have been a pectoral fin … I think; I’m still not sure.

What do you think? How many Orcas are in this picture ... 3 or 4?

In any event, we had a grand time with them. They swam around and under the boat, surfacing right next to us at times. They were playing with us; no doubt about it. One of them even graced us with a breach, throwing it’s body high out of the water and landing with a huge splash.

Any closer and this one would be in the boat with us.

I’m afraid I only caught the tail end of the breach.
(you can see the full breach here … good job Lindsay)

This one swam under the boat to surface next to me.
the black coloring in the white saddle patch around the dorsal fin is a
good indication that this orca is a member of a resident pod.

Bye, Bye!

So why, B&W and not color photos. I simply didn’t like all that blue sea as a background for these beautiful black and white creatures. That said, I did keep one color shot … it was the only way to show the pale rainbow effect in the blow.

This wasn’t our first encounter with the Wolves of the Sea; but this one was the best.