Abe Borker

It was one of the finest trips of the season. We set out in and out of fog, and found the waters glassy calm. Behind a fishing vessel we saw 16 Black Footed Albatross, and scores Rhinocerous Auklets on the water at the edge of the fog.

All was quiet, and we were just coming into Ashy Storm-Petrels when one of the leaders, Terry spotted Orcas off the bow! We had emerged from the fog, and under blue skies, with Santa Cruz in the background we watched SIX Orcas splash around, belly rolling, spy hopping, and a few times breaching. At one point they attacked a sunfish near the boat! The sight was breathtaking. All of a sudden a humpback whale was sighted on the far side of the boat. As I kept watching the Orcas from the opposite side of the boat, a HUGE fluke emerged! A humpback whale was a few hundred feet away coming towards the Orcas. Three humpback whales came behind the Orcas in tight formation, one with particularly raspy blow noise. As they steamed forward the Orcas often came very close. It was incredible! During all this everything from Black Vented Shearwaters to Black Footed Albatross glided in between the whales. After a fantastically satisfying show, the fog rolled in and we moved on, feeling very lucky for our experience.

We also had an incredible day for storm-petrels, about four thousand Ashy Storm-petrels and one Wilson’s Storm Petrel that came right into the slick!

Oh and two skua!

As always, the rest below…

EDIT: Sorry for the confusion, I never did photograph THREE simultaneously breaching orcas. It was merely a collage of three successive frames of the orca breaching. I made that disclaimer here, but some folks misunderstood, so I’ve switched the photo…

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• Leighton September 30, 2009

  Nice photos, Abe!
• Sebastian Kennerknecht October 1, 2009

  Awesome Abe. Orcas huh?….that’s just amazing and very lucky. Great story too.
  Seabass