[CINC] Condor 12/21/2008 - A day we will never forgot - ORCAS ! ! !

[Kevin Bailey]

1 Blue Shark (5-6 feet long)

1500 Common Dolphins

50 porpoising female sea lions + 2 very large male sea lions

12 Orcas ! !

Today started off as a slow chilly day with nothing much happening for over
an hour. Scott Cuzzo and Toni Bailey were working the crowd of 22 from
France, England, Holland, MN and S. Cal. We were also joined by Bob Perry
who many of you know. He’ll have pictures up on his site in the next day or
two. We got a very quick glance at a Blue Shark at the surface right in
front of the boat, but must have spooked it because it dove immediately.  I
did get to see 2 fins out of the water and this was my 1st Blue Shark
sighting. There were several types of sea birds but not the huge groups we
saw 2 weeks ago. We did however see lots of tiny auklets skimming over the
surface barely able to fly with their bellies full of food. There were also
a couple of small sea lion groups that were porpoising along like they were
on a mission and had somewhere to get to. They probably knew what we had yet
to see or know.

We made it deep into SRI territory with good views of SMI and great views of
SRI and SCI and never saw a whale. We then cruised far into the gap and
still no luck so we cruised along SCI and came upon a megapod of 1500
Commons. They were all doing their regular swimming stroke – no jumping or
frolicking like in weeks past but it’s always exciting to see so many
dolphins together. As we continued down SCI we saw a few sea lions and birds
along the bluffs then poked our nose into the cave before heading home.

By now almost all of the passengers are sound asleep downstairs with no one
on deck. When Bob and I saw each other this morning we both said to each
other that we were here today to take pictures of Orcas. When I talked to
Scott a couple days ago we decided that today was the day we were finally
going to see Orcas. It’s now after 1:30pm and no whales. We are heading home
and Scott and I convince Toni that she had not done her Orca dance well
enough. Toni demonstrated the impromptu Orca Dance and I swear it was 15
minutes later – they appeared! We were 60-70% home and Mat, Jacque, Bob
Perry and I are up top looking for spouts. Mat saw something a mile+ ahead.
A small spout
is it a Gray whale? Could be an Orca? Moving full steam ahead
we saw the 3rd surfacing of the whale and we all clearly saw the black and
white of an Orca whale. The yelling and screaming of excitement was alive!
In less than 10 seconds, a sleeping boat was all at the bow as we headed
directly for a group of Killer Whales. My Christmas wish had come true! When
we got to the Orcas there were 12 and several were in a very tight group.
There was a very young calf less than 2 years old. It had its black and
white markings and was not a newbie; there were no wrinkles or other
features that would indicate it was brand new. It did obviously stay
immediately next to its mother and was surrounded in a tight group the whole
time. I got lots of great photo ID pictures of the saddles and many pictures
with multiple whales. The whales were absolutely amazing. Every person on
board was completely in awe! They were so close together that many of the
photos had up to 6 whales in a single frame. They were moving quite fast and
we were with them for 4-5 down cycles. On 2 down cycles we could see them
300 feet under the boat on the fish finder. We didn’t see the Orcas until a
bit before 2pm and stayed with them for ½ hour which made us late getting
home but no one was complaining. It was an amazing day that we will all
always remember.

Kevin Bailey PID

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.rain.org/pipermail/channel_islands_naturalist_corps/attachments/20081221/bd071a59/attachment.html>