August 6th, 2022
The 2 o’clock tour out of Port Townsend. We had a location in mind.
We had seen this particular group of orcas earlier in the day, and that’s where we were headed.
But we then got interrupted by some other orcas! We were freaking out trying to ID them, so confused as how they got missed by other whale watchers!
Do their dorsal fins look a little weird to you? They should…
Anything sticking out?
At this point, I am noticing that they look a little different, maybe northern residents? Why is this one so white?
Let me get some better lighting
THAT IS A RISSO’S DOLPHIN!
These are insanely rare in the Salish Sea, none of my co-workers had seen them before. There were three naturalist on board and we had to google information about them because we knew nothing. We learned that they are about 13 feet in length, weigh a bit over 1,000lbs. They get their signature scratches from each other and their prey - squid!
The orcas we were looking for were no further then a mile away, so we went and spent time with them
This is Jack, T137A, a 20 year old orca who travels with his mom, Loon, and two younger siblings.
The magic of the day wasn’t over with the Risso’s, because this family pod took down a harbor porpoise and celebrated how they know best.
At this point, we were gonna be late, but we thought we had one more trick up our sleeve.
Meet Kata, BCY1218. This whale was hanging out down near Tacoma for WEEKS. But we didn’t just see her fluke.
She breached
(did I get a picture of that? no)
We watched her move along, bumping into a crab pot on the way (she did not get stuck, we made certain).
While I didn’t get a photo of the breach, I did get some epic lunge feeding shots
If I make a blog about it, it was an epic day. This is definitely in my top 5 trips so far, maybe top 3. This absolutely does not happen every day, someone was wearing their lucky socks.
Photo credit to R Mohanty
