Bremer Bay Orca Tours Finale 2024 today as we celebrated our final Orca tour for the 2024 season with Queen and her family pod. It was a day filled with much excitement and also a tinge of sadness in knowing it would be our final time with the Orca for the next fews months. The season has been a brilliant one with the Orca feeding very well over the summer and into the early autumn. Over the coming days and weeks the Orca families continue to expand their search range as they look further afield for prey and with fewer Orca pods in The Patch the sightings become less frequent. Today was a wonderful day to celebrate the season on as within moments of arriving in The Patch much loved matriarch Queen surfaced along with her family pod to greet everyone after being out of the area for over a week. A nearby oil slick indicated the family had been busy and successful in locating breakfast as we could see sharing of food taking place before they regrouped. Surging to the west the momentum was a thrill to be part of as the Orca surfed their way towards their next meal.
Surging continued for a good ten kilometres before the family stopped abruptly, regrouped and powered straight towards our bow before diving deeply. A minute or so afterwards another oil slick appeared on the surface and it was a good eight minutes later before the family resurfaced further ahead in a distinctive FLOT line. The pattern continued throughout the morning and into the afternoon as surging was followed by a deep dive and shortly afterwards a smallish oil slick would appear. The prey they were targeting looked to be either squid or fish that was being consumed efficiently and didn’t require the family to call everyone in after each kill as it was small enough to share with the nearest pod member before continue on to the next snack. It was wonderful to spend these last hours with Queen and her family pod with Alki and her family also joining in with the foraging activities as well. It was a beautiful day to celebrate Bremer Bay Orca tours finale 2024 with our Pod Members onboard, brilliant crew and wonderful Orca. Stay tuned for our end of season wrap up on the Daily Whale for this years highlights!
