The weather was a step above yesterday! With the clouds parting and the sun shining it didn’t take long to find orca! Mako and Urkel’s pods were patrolling the hotspot headquarters before taking us down to the S-Bends! On our way we came across from very docile pilot whales, one lone straggler came so close to the bow and hovered just below the surface staying stationary, blowing bubbles right into the camera!! The orca were unsuccessful on their patrol s-w, changing their trajectory back toward the hotspot when we sighted an ENORMOUS blow out in front! It wasn’t long before we saw a blue whales lunge its head right out of the water!! We were SURE the orca would soon hone in on the world’s largest animal but no!!!
The blue whale went undetected for quite some time! We had lost sight of the orca before we started to see the pod drastically pick up speed, surging toward the area where we last had eyes on the blue! Small oil slicks and a distinct mammalian smell wafted toward the vessel as we passed HUGE whale footprints. The orca chopped and changed their speed and direction frequently as it seemed they were attempting to force the blue whale toward the shelf! Close to the action was a large pod of pilot whales feeding at the surface as birds squawked and swirled above them! We closely trailed the orca for over an hour as they zig-zagged their way into 800m of water with no more signs of the blue! The orca spent seemingly long periods below the surface almost as though they were attacking the blue whale sub-surface! We suggest that the blue either got away or sunk to the depths unable to be retrieved at such extreme depths! We hope it wasn’t the latter this time! The orca cruised for the rest of the day making the occasional close pass for our happy customers! The cherry on top of today after immense amounts of anticipation and near misses was the (not so angry) sausages passing in the hundreds RIGHT beside the boat!!
