Ruffles

What an unbelievably fun day. I am still in Victoria where for all morning and into early afternoon we continued our large summit discussing future marketing strategy and routes to revenue. But in the afternoon was our fun activity time and what a treat. We had the choice of golf, kayaking or whale watching. Duh, of course you know what I chose. Because it is so cold and we are in these small zodiac boats that go up to 60mph with only 12 people (no shelter or shielding) we are in these full head to toe, red, bulky but warm full outfits. It was a sight to see. We all pile into to boats and I would like to think the group I was with got the better boat, simply because of our driver, Tom. Tom has been leading tours for 3 years and before that in Search and Rescue for 7 years. He knew the waters like the back of his hand and all the history attributed to it.

We go out onto the open water and after warning us we take off. Now I am in the front row with two others as it is supposed to be dryer but bumpier. I figure I can take bumpy over wet. This boat is literally leaping out of the water and our butts are coming off the seat by a good 12-15 inches. We can see our sister ship literally hitting waves and flying out of the water by 2-3 feet. It was jarring and exhilarating all in one. Better than any roller coaster I have ever been on. We see some sea lions on the rocks and frankly cute but pretty far away nothing special. We hear of a sighting of whales and we head off. What luck, we ended up finding a pod of 75 (pod group J and K) Orcas just cruising into the bay calm as can be. They are literally on all sides of the boat and just looking as beautiful as can be. After they all pass, we zoom back to 65 miles an hour to get back in front and watch it again. The second time they are even closer but as the main group passes we see three whales in the back making a big of a ruckus and well above water. We ask all knowing Tom what we are seeing as they approach quickly. One of them turns over and man it looked like it was giving birth. Tom soon informs us that this is Ruffles, a 50 year old Orca that has been mating with anything that swims for 35 years. That was exactly what we were watching, two females and good ol’ Ruffles. Women, when a boyfriend or husband asks for a three-way and as you are so disgusted and ask where he got that idea, don’t be surprised if he says from the Discovery channel apparently this is common. I think we might have a picture of the member (will have to check camera later) but might have to warn people of adult content before posting. Suffice to say Free Willy lived, literally.

As we roam to see the whales a third time, Tom tells us about the intelligence of these majestic and graceful animals. They are apparently not only incredibly intelligent but also very family oriented. He tells the story from a researcher who had been following one pod where this one baby Orca was always with his mother. One day he is in the middle between two male Orcas for some strange reason with no sign of the mother. They later find out that the two males are the uncle and brother and were with the baby because the mother is dead. Since none of the other female Orca’s were lactating, the uncle and brother were taking turns catching salmon, chewing it and feeding it to the baby until he could catch his own food (I think we could all take example from these animals). Another story revolved around how much the Orcas love a certain type of fish that lives deep in the ocean. Fisherman used to lay deep lines and as they reeled up the line the Orcas would eat the fish off the line. Clearly this did not make the fisherman happy so they developed ways to stop this behavior. They tried reeling in empty lines to try and discourage the Orcas, but the Orcas could actually hear the difference between a full line and an empty line. Next they tried to lay one line far out from the group distract the pod and reel in their catch safely. The whales caught on and swam at 35+ mph and still got the fish. Finally the fisherman divided the lines in half at far distances so they assumed they would only loose half. Guess what, on the fly the Orca pod divided in half each taking half of the lines. How amazing is that?? Such majestic and unfortunately endangered animals. I will definitely post pictures as soon as I can figure out why I have been having problems posting, but suffice to say unbelievable!!