We hadn’t seen our boy El Notcho for nearly a week and he was the first pod we encountered today! It’s always a treat for customers that witness him first as his HUGE dorsal fin is a VERY impressive first glance at a male orca! It’s become almost a routine over the past week that the orca are distracted and diving deep though the morning. We definitely can’t complain because we’ve been sighting orca before 10 am EVERY day! Hunting in the morning also suggests we’ll be more likely to have close and interactive encounters by the afternoon.
A LONG way in the past six years, developing patterns, determining behaviour and even picking where the orca will rise to the surface for the PERFECT shot! Once you’ve encountered the Bremer Bay orca for a week or two you start to discern characteristics and routines of pods and each individual within them. The crew all have their own favourites! AND they have their own little reasons why;
Brodee, Machi & Jamie = Split-tip
Billy & Jamie (yes Jamie couldn’t decide on just one!) = Nibbles
Karina = Razor & Blade sa>
However, we all now LOVE little Neo! We had little Neo’s pod, Nibbles pod AND El Notchos pods with us throughout the day. We were naturally drawn to little Neo’s pod as the customers and crew just couldn’t get enough of the cuteness! Little Neo was launching his entire body out of the water for EVERY breath, it was equal parts adorable and hilarious! One of the theories behind this is that the calves haven’t quite figured out where their blowhole is situated just yet so they have to do it in order to not take in the water!!
We had another afternoon of oil slicks galore! STILL not knowing what they were feeding on as they were doing it at depth! No remains, no blood, JUST oil! By 2 pm and once we were the only vessel left in the canyon things started to get interesting! The pods were full and were ready to play! The afternoon was complete with close passes, rolls upside-down, glowing underbellies and epic underwater footage! To sum it up, it was another GREAT DAY in Bremer Bay!
