Bremer Canyon Wildlife Expedition today as we travelled to the Patch in search of our Orca Pod’s after yesterday’s exhausting Blue Whale hunt. It was very quiet in the Patch when a lone Leatherback Turtle greeted us on arrival and after a quick hello we departed west toward yesterday’s Whale Fall where Orca can continue to feed or use the Fall as ‘bait’ to entice other prey, mainly squid, which also attract Beaked Whales for the Orca to prey upon.
After a few miles a slick was found and inspected and close by were Pilot Whales perusing the shelf in hunt for their meal of the day. Pilot’s are known shadow Orca and further investigation some ten minutes later we discovered our Orca slowly moving west, still far from the Fall of yesterday but moving in that direction. We cruised along their flanks as Chrissy from Maltida’s Pod came into to wish us good morning time and time again, showing interest in what was our propulsion and playing in our wake, darting under the boat and out to the bow delighting our guests.
Some 3 hours later we came abeam of the Whale Fall from yesterday and our Killer Whales continued to push to the west, slowly but surely as they echo located over a very wide range of ocean space. The one Pod covered over a 1.5nm range and continued to engage with our vessel all morning and into the afternoon as our guests enjoyed Orca theatre in beautiful weather and great interactions. It was nearing our time for departure when our skipper noticed a very distinct blow in the distance and the reason why we probably had the slick many hours earlier, it was a Sperm Whale, the complete compliment to our Bremer Canyon Wildlife Expedition today, a day of life and beautiful creatures cruising the Bremer Canyon region, a far cry from the the week of multiple cetacean and squid kills, but that is life in the Southern Ocean.
