Heading south out of Friday Harbor we turned on the speed and booked it towards Cattle Pass! We first arrived on scene to a nice spread out pod of Orcas, looking to both our left and right there were orcas near and far! They seemed to be traveling in a “zig-zag” pattern, which is notorious to feeding habits, so we dropped our hydrophone in to take a listen! Sure enough they were “clicking” and vocalizing! We sat in silence and awe as we listened to the clicks get louder and louder, we couldn’t see them as they were on a longer dive, but we could hear them! Soon enough a mother and calf came to the surface and let us have a really good look – it was K-27 and her brand new (less than a week old) calf K-44! The new calf seemed to be exploring his new abilities with his tiny 6-7ft body as he porpoised and splashed through the surface of the water.
We sat in silence for a while as the mother and calf made their way off and just when we thought we got our last look at them they reappeared with over 16 other members of K Pod!! We watched in awe as the pod grouped all together and headed straight for the boat! We were stuck where we were and surrounded by orcas! Gracefully as ever, they skimmed the surface headed straight for the boat, they sank right under the water calmly passing underneath and resurfacing on the other side! It was so amazing to see how aware of us they were as we were to them! I don’t think they had as much fun watching us as we did watching them as they slowly moved away from our boat, all in unison and synchronized perfectly. At this point we were all stunned and amazed! We even topped the trip off on our way back in to Friday Harbor with a pair of bald eagles and several harbor seals hauled out on some rocks!
Alex, Naturalist
San Juan Safaris