What a great Earth Day it was today! We left the harbor and were greeted by a pod of Risso’s Dolphins.
We had our looks at the pod and then proceeded to head south. Then about an hour later, the captain proceeded to turn the boat around and said they had reports of orcas.
Surprisingly, this pod of 4 was only a few miles offshore from Fort Ord Dunes State Park. They had hunted a sea lion and were feeding on it when we arrived.
The pod then proceeded to attempt to hunt more sea lions. The sheer power you could see from the orcas as they burst from the water as they porpoised to hunt the sea lions was just amazing.
However, the sea lions managed to evade the orcas by swimming from boat to boat.
They also had a bit of help from some humpback whales that swam on over to interfere with the hunt.
After 4 hours, the orcas then moved on towards the south, and we parted ways with them when an active young humpback whale started to breach. Quite a day indeed!
-Patrick
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