I've had some very extrodinary encounters with whales, sea lions, and porpoise over the years in my sailing travels. In my own home waters of the Puget Sound / Salish Seas I've had some wonderful encounters with one humpback whale, one gray whale, tons of porpoise, and several incredible encounters with the resident orcas.
The most extrodinary encounter happened one fine Saturday morning as I was dialing in my boat to venture going offshore for the first time. I'd invited a special lady friend along to sail from Shilshole Harbor to spend the night moored to a buoy at Blake Island.
The wind was light out of the south, and as the tide was high, I was cutting it close to rounding West Point under power in about 12 feet of water. No worries for me as my twin keeler drew just a tad over 3 feet. As we were running the point I saw what I first thought to be a bunch of logs in the water ahead of us. But the 'logs' were moving in a linear way that logs generally don't. Suddenly I realized what I was seeing and immediately throttled back, popped my transmission into neutral, and shut off my trusty 2 cylinder Yanmar.
"What are you doing?" Charlotte asked me in alarm.
All I could say in response was "Wait for it".
A pod of between 12 to 14 orcas came straight at us from the south. They split in two around us. The alpha male swam behind us with his 5-6 foot tall dorsal fin cutting the water just a few feet behind my transom. When we looked forward we witnessed an even more incredible sight. A proud orca moma side by side with her newly born calf! I'd read in the Seattle Times few days before that someone had spotted a newly born calf in our waters way to the south. The calf was only about 4 feet long and still it's infant colors of dark chocolate brown and pink which would turn to the more familiar black and white patches as it matured over the next few months.
Wow! What a treat. Charlotte and I were completely speechless watching them swim past us and on to the North.
