Saturday November 24th 2018 – Today was a wildlife fanatic’s dream! We had breaching Bigg’s Transients, an unexpected visit from some California Transients, a Sea Otter and more….
Captain Ian headed south in search of whales and within no time at all one of our guests spotted a dorsal fin. As Ian got closer he realised it was the T60’s and they were making a kill. After they had killed and eaten whatever poor marine mammal they had beneath the waves they started to celebrate and then the birds arrived. As the birds hovered over head, swooping down to grab scraps when they could, the Transients started to leap out of the water again and again. They were clearly in celebration mode! They breached at least 5 times and Captain Ian snapped some awesome pics that you can see on our Facebook Page.
As they followed this exciting group of whales they came across another pod. This time it was a rare sighting of a pod of California Killer Whales. These guys were also in killing mode – or at least in torture mode. They had a Sea Lion at the surface and they were thrashing him about for over a half hour. The T60’s swam through and hung around watching the torture for about 10 minutes and then headed off. Our tour stuck with the California Transients and watched as they threw the sea lion around. He was convinced they were playing with their food before eating it but that wasn’t the case. They finally left the Sea Lion alone and it was barely alive. It struggled for air at the surface as the whales swam away. Were they really just brutally playing with this poor animal and now leaving it for dead? Killer Whales are known to do this and as brutal as it is to us it is nature at it’s best. Killer Whales are the top predator in the ocean and they sure proved that today!
The tour ended with a trip to Race Rocks Ecological Reserve where we saw Elephant Seals, a Sea Otter and hundreds of Sea Lions.
It truly was a day to remember out there!