In the first installment of this essay, I mentioned my obsession with Orcas. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I've read about the resident pods of Orcas in the San Juan Islands - J, K and L pods. I've followed an incredible blog, Orca Watcher - www.orcawatcher.com, for years. I've looked at tons of pictures of these animals in the Salish Sea, and I've longed to be there and see these animals with the back drop of these shorelines of shore and tall evergreen trees - it's breathtaking, both in pictures and in person.
As I also stated in the other installments, I kept consoling myself by the thought of just being in these waters and knowing, contemplating the thought that they're out there - they live here. So as much as I wanted to see more of what we saw two days earlier, just being on these waters was amazing. I would carry that thought back home with me, along with the thought that I have got to take more trips like these. Crazy as it may sound to anyone else - and I'll borrow this line, albeit a paraphrased version of it, from my Elephant Academy friend/fellow student, Jennifer Edwards - whom I had the pleasure of meeting up with on this trip: My soul lives here - and it has for many years.
If that sounds like some hipster phrase to you, I'm okay with that. All I know is that my soul has lived in the Pacific Northwest for years - and almost entirely because of these beautiful black & white whales. While I no longer want to be a whale trainer - because for the most part, I know it would really bother me to form a connection with these animals in an exploitative environment they shouldn't be subjected to, yes, it would be nice to see up close how intelligent these animals really are - and to bond with them. I've come to believe that this bond should be more spiritual. I'm not supposed to ride one, command him or her to leap into the air or do anything else to amuse or amaze others, then toss a fish in its mouth.
I don't want to get on a soapbox here, but they pluck these animals out of tightly formed family groups that they remain in for their entire lives. These family groups that eat specific things - for example, the resident pods eat Salmon. The transient groups eat mammals - and no, humans in kayaks, while falling into the mammal category, do not enter into that diet. The groups don't cross over, because each one has their own dialect. They don't talk to one another saying things like, "Oh y'all eat Salmon? What else? You never tried Stellar Seal Lion?? Get the fuck outta here!" As I've compiled my own photographs from this trip, the thought occurred to me, that not only have humans disregarded the significance of capturing these animals in traumatic ways, they have also not taken into consideration what these animals are used to eating - stay with me here folks, my point is:
At some point or another, humans would've had to capture a transient whale or several. While they may indeed be sitting in a marine life park somewhere in this world, I can guarantee you that these animals are no longer eating what they've evolved to eat in their social groups in their natural environment. In other words, that popular/trademark whale name we all know, is not eating Sea Lions or porpoises in their new show business home. There are groups of these animals in different parts of the world that eat and have become masters at hunting what lives in their specific areas - and they've had no real reason to look outside those diets. I have to say that I'm thankful that I first saw these animals in a marine life park - and I saw them up close. It didn't matter to me what tricks the animals did, I would stand there and stare in fascination all day - but often I was with others who wanted to see other attractions.
Okay, off of the soapbox, onto this encounter and more photos - and I'm thrilled to say, some much better photos from much closer up!
So after we headed further out from where we saw the Gray Whale, I kept trying to prepare myself for disappointment. Remember the captain - Captain Jim, if I recall correctly, had mentioned that he didn't know about the black and whites. Me? Well I was hoping for some glimpses of J, K or L pods - but I'll take transients too. Our boat slows down and comes to a slow, creeping stop. For those of you who have never been on one of these excursions, when the boat slows down or stops, there's a good reason for it.
Captain Jim comes over the boat's PA:
"....and folks, we've come to a stop so that I can tell you that off of our bow at around 11 o'clock, we've got some Killer Whales to take a look at"
Thank you, Sweet Baby Jesus. All of the enjoyable things on this trip, this is why I wanted to come here. This. After hearing Captain Jim's announcement, I thought my frantic photo snapping was shots much like the first trip - but now that I'm looking through them, even the distant shots were much closer:
In the shot below, look closely at the picture - you can see the baby still has the orange/yellow tint on the white patch:
From this point onward, I start to see that the whales were definitely getting closer to our boat - which I hadn't really noticed at this point in my shooting. Check it out:
I could post every image that I capture leading up to this next one, and it wouldn't bother me, but it might well bore you - so I'll cut ahead a bit and show you the point where there was no denying that these animals were about to come right up to our boat - and this happened within seconds of Captain Jim telling us we would be leaving after the next surfacing!
If you can't really tell that these animals are closer, let me assure you that right about now in my images, is when I realized that these beautiful whales were going to come much closer to our boat. For weeks I'd been telling people about my upcoming vacation, and every time I talked about it, I said I was going specifically in the hopes of seeing these animals in the wild - and photographing them. Every image I've shared here was thrilling to see and capture! However, it's the ones I'm going to follow with now, that did exactly what I told people I wanted to come away from this trip with: Some really good photographs of Killer Whales in their natural habitat, that I myself took!
Come on now, you can see it now - can't you?
Don't even try to tell me that you can't see it now.
Oh yes indeed here folks, they're coming closer!
Still with me? It's going to get a lot better...
...and better
...and even better
...some more?
In the middle of these three, we have the baby - you can see the orange/yellowish hue to the white patch that these whales have when they're first born. I'm not sure how old they get to be before it goes pure white. Look a bit closer at the whale in the front of this image - past the dorsal fin and saddle patch right behind the fin, look towards the black along the length of the back section in the water - you can see the white underside.
I'll wrap this up here with one more photo - but I have more good photos documenting this incredible experience - I'm happy to share, talk about it...or both!
...and then they all turned and headed away from our boat. We didn't see them surface again for quite some time, and Captain Jim said we were going to stay put until we knew exactly where they were in the water around us. Would I have hoped that they decided to hang out a bit longer right underneath us and stay close? Absolutely, but I had a feeling that I'd gotten at least a few good pictures with them passing so closely. When the did surface again, they were back to being a couple hundred yards away. Captain Jim did say that we were heading back in - but he also said that if he saw more whales, we would indeed stop. We didn't on that day, but I can tell you that the next time I do one of these excursions, I'm doing it with Blackfish Tours. I hope you've enjoyed my musings and photographs here. Peace, good people.
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