Today certainly had it all! Male on male orca sex, a potential predation on Pilot Whales from the Big Eye Patch Crew who seem to be making their own rules, little Neo surging as fast as he could to keep up and so much more!
It all began with Nani and Chalky getting IT ON! Chalky was swimming along slowly and just below and behind him was an upside down Nani. We could all guess what they were up to and our suspicions were confirmed when a large pink penis emerged out of the water!!
Nani was parading around his pink fleshy appendage and pushing Chalky up and out of the water, tickling his belly! Typically coiled up within the genital slit to avoid injury and to have a streamlined design the 1.8 metre prehensile penis was on full show! Another interesting encounter since these are both adult males. Most likely some form of communication but it gave us all a good giggle. Nani was taking the phrase “free willy” literally!
The saucy morning led into full blown orca fun! Neo ventured over and checked us out with two of the cutest spy-hops! We spotted surging orca in the distance but Neo and fam were outta there! They ducked away back behind us while Split Tip and pod bursted off in-front! Splitty was WHACKING her tail on the sea surface over and over again only breaking from slaps to breach and belly flop!
This pod and three others surged southwest almost toying with us! As orca pulsed ahead we had two of the bulls surfing and ‘sharking’ right alongside our vessel! A small oil slick appeared as the orca dropped below the surface so we pulled up to reassess. The orca had disappeared and we were suddenly alone!?
Two pods of Pilot Whales (PW) soon accompanied our vessel – one beside and the other further ahead. Surging at the leading pod caught our eye… but on approach we realised some of the surges were from Killer Whales! Three big orca bulls and their pods pushed towards the PW’s and then sharply changed direction! The orca pod are known to the boat crew as the Big Eye Patch’s and it is a coincidence that they had similar intentions last time we observed them. Seemingly rounding up PW’s and a definite predation but what EXACTLY was the prey??
Chaos all around with hundreds of birds swirling above, oil slicking to the surface and active hungry orca. No confirmed sightings of a PW being eaten but a chunk of meat in an orcas mouth heavily resembled the skin and red flesh of a PW… Nevertheless we can only speculate. The orca PREDATED on something and maybe this was just a case of PW’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way it was another extraordinary day in the bremer canyon’s killer whale watching adventure!
With these much activities in Bremer Canyon, we wonder what our Augusta Whale Watching tours will bring to us.
