Today was my 1st day back on the water in 2 years and it was a bonanza !
My 2 most rememberable trips are now the day we saw 36+ blue whales between
SRI/SMI early in my CINC volunteer career and today witnessing feeding orcas.
We started off the day about a ½ hour out with 6 Risso’s Dolphins that hung
out with the boat while we watched for about 15minutes. Do Risso’s hang out
with boats, no, well, I mean yeah, sometimes: today they went left, right,
front and center and then just kept rotating positions. Usually we see Risso’s
dolphins as a quick flash, look there they are, oh they are gone now. Not
today! Soon after we left the 6 solo Risso’s we encountered a pod of over 500+
Risso’s – the largest pod the crew or I had ever seen scattered over a mile
wide.
Soon after we started watching the giant Risso’s pod we got a call of orcas
north of SCI on east end. They had just killed a dolphin and were in feeding
mode. We jetted over to see what we could find.
We saw the CA 122 family with a large male and a female with 4 of her
offspring, the youngest still all grey and looking young and cute. They were
still in full attack mode and in search of more food. We spent the rest of the
day watching these amazing creatures in what is really hard to describe in
words. They were in full travel mode searching a very wide area for more
dolphin. Surface intervals were pretty short and then they would pop up 1/2 – 1
mile away. About an hour into the orca show we saw a huge pod of common
dolphins headed directly toward us (and the orcas). We were now north of
Anacapa Island and heading a bit north and east. Adam’s narration was quite
good and he told us that the orcas go into “silent mode” when they are in
hunting mode. I had not heard this before and was wondering why the dolphins
were on a direct collision course with the 6 orcas?! The dolphin were traveling
fast to the west and the orcas were traveling north and then their paths
crossed! BOOM! Hit! An explosive jump and kill less than 200 yards off the bow
as an orca jumps into the air from the deep to make the kill, then BOOM ,
another jump … then a couple younger ones surfaced to see the action before
they all disappeared for the 2nd meal in the past couple hours. They were down
for a bit eating at least one dolphin. After the explosive hit and kill, the
2500 dolphins turned a 180 to go back to east. Funny seeing how a fast moving
dolphin pod traveling west can do a 180 in 2.2 seconds and in a blink all are
heading to the east!
What was also very interesting to see was how very little was left of the kill.
There were no floating pieces /chunks that came to the surface and there were
maybe 2 dozen gulls that were above and near the kill to pick up the very few /
tiny scraps. Interesting watching the gulls pick up tiny little pieces of
dolphin meat no larger than an inch or 2.
Today was a day I will never forget and always cherish as witness to the raw
power of nature.
Oh, and I did talk to passengers: a light load today so got to mingle with
those interested until the orca show began. The most interesting was a solo
traveler from England who lives on a small island and whose wife and family
didn’t want to come to the US but he was “tired of covid and wanted to see the
US again”. He was here 5 weeks and drove across the country and along Route 66.
Told me about many stops he had made. He said it very interesting to see how he
paid $2.19/gallon for gas in Indiana and $5.34/gallon in LA and the farther he
got to the west coast the higher the prices for everything became.
Kevin Bailey with Capt. Devon, Kelly and Photo/Narrator Adam
