COULDN’T GET ANY CLOSER!

Today was a day we’ll remember forever! To begin, the orcas behaviour correlated with the energy of the ocean, being very cool calm and collected, resting at the surface for the first 30 minutes! Flapper and her calf Maddison have been present over our last three tours, today building the courage to come right alongside and beneath the hull more times than we could count! The calf continued to eyeball the gopro as she flipped over onto her belly, skimming the surface with her pecs for all of our customers to enjoy. The squeals and screams of our customers (and our staff) kept the calves intrigued for over 15 minutes with encounters so close you could almost lean over and touch them!  Urkel and an Unknown bull’s pod took us south east, almost reaching the Hood Canyon before slowly merging north, keeping us few mile off the hotspot and west off the S-Bends, which was among aery no man’s land around 1200m deep! The wind began to drop just as quickly as the swell, as we cruised through areas of the canyon that we have barely ventured before, making for vast nothingness which faded into the foggy distance! With every mile we clocked, more and more orca would appear! At most, we had over 4 pods surrounding the vessel, stretching far from our starboard to our port side. Recognisable orca making up the majority of the pods! B-slice, Slater, Slug, Noosa,Billie, Alki, Lucky, WA085, Adina, Baby Machi, and Nani just to name a few! With the late arrival of split-tip and her crew, we thought we may be in for a KILL! However, the activity of the now 30+ orca was characteristic of only VERY social behaviour! From Flapper babysitting an array of calves to some of our “sprouting” males having a red hot go as some of the passing females only metres from the boat! From spy hops to orca pressing their rostrums against the hull there was NEVER a dull moment!! Whether you were at the bow, the stern or even inside the cabin there was always an orca in sight putting on a show of sorts! The rain only ceased momentarily from our departure to our arrival back at the harbour, resulting in nearly EVERY customer being drenched from head to toe. However, the weather didn’t stop ANY of us from getting a glance at these magnificent creatures (and attempting to get that perfect shot), if anything, it almost added to the beauty of the day! Today’s encounters were up there with some of the best and closest we’ve ever had! The more time we spend with the orca, the more clued on they are with our vessel, becoming almost more conscious of us and our presence. The most interest was displayed by Maddison the calf and our camera poles, edging so close she could’ve touched it, supplying the most AMAZING footage! Make sure you check it out on our Facebook and Instagram pages! It will definitely be hard to erase what we witnessed today from the memory bank that’s for sure!