Meeting the neighbors

Pritch

Pritch

Joined
May 3, 2006
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A Pitdog mentioned earlier, this month hasn't been exactly "summery." My wife and I have lived in Washington for eleven years and have never had the chance to see Orcas in the Puget Sound. Even though the original weather report was iffy, we went ahead and booked a whale watching tour out of Anacortes, Washington for Sunday. As the day drew closer, the weather got progressively better. "June-uary" was finally subsiding and we looked forward to our Sunday afternoon cruise.

We were blessed to get right in the midst of a resident group known as J-Pod." I thought you might enjoy a couple of pics. My digital doesn't have the greatest zoom, so I had to corp these a bit.

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Mother and calf

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Nice of this one to pose in front of Mt. Baker!

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Largest male in J Pod, known as "Ruffles." Apparently Orcas are matriachal, with J Pod being led by a 97 year old female as "Granny." (Right at home here in Seattle! :rolleyes:)


-- FLIX
 
Man that second shot is classic, I would have to hang that on my wall...awesome !!!!
 
nice shots, sounds like a fun day.

good that the weather turned good, or else these shots might have been a bit more gray...
 
Yep - perfect composition on that 2nd one. Thanks for sharing!
 
Thanks guys! I really like the one with the mountain behind it as well. The whales breached several times, but I managed to have my camera at "low ready" each time! :grumpy: Here is a shot of the boat we took, and a gull posing on a little islet that she grabbed as we were on the way back.

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Only after the fact did I think about staging some gratuitous knife porn pics! I swapped out my Kershaw Blackout 1550 for one with a stainless blade and half serrations! :D

-- FLIX

Edited to add: That big male's dorsal fin is about six feet tall. He got very close to our boat, but never exposed more of his body than seen in the picture. Looked like a giant torpedo.
 
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Hey Flix,

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing. I've been wanting to get out and see some Orcas for awhile now (you went right by my house on 20 on your way to Anacortes), but we haven't had a chance yet. My 3-year old son loves whales, so he's going to get a kick out of your pictures, too.

It's been nice to have some decent weather, finally. I got a chance to take a 3 hour hike on Blanchard Saturday afternoon, which was a nice change.

If you live in the area, PM me and we should get together sometime for some woods time.
 
Thanks again, everybody. The credit for that second shot belongs more to the boat's captain, who positioned the boat so that we could get that shot. All I had to do was figure out where the whale was going to surface, and get the shot before she dove again.

One more item checked off the bucket list!

MM38 - I'm talking with a couple of people from arond here about putting together a get-together. As soon as I know more, I'll post it.

-- FLIX
 
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