Isabela Island
It is another sweet, tranquil sunny morning at Isabela Island. We have found a few fur seals on the rocks of Punta Vicente Roca, and we are ready to go back to the ship for Professor Bud Wobus’ geology lecture. Then the captain calls through the radio; “there is something kind of unusual on the port side of the Polaris”.
I grab my binoculars and look. There is a feeding frenzy. Frigates (40 at least) pick up bits from the water. Audubon shearwaters fly overhead, side by side with storm petrels that walk on the sea collecting something. Then we spot a fin, THE fin. A huge, upright, black orca fin.
It is a male. We distinguish pieces of carcass at the surface. The entrails of a creature of some kind. We spot another fin, probably a younger male orca. The frigates fight like crazy for bits of the carcass. The massive male orca comes up to the surface again. We are watching from just a few yards away.
All the other zodiacs approach. Sea lions seem not to understand what is going on, and like us, stay in the area watching.
It takes me a while to realize that we are in the middle of orcas hunting, and feeding.
The orcas leave, slowly move to the north. And we, like the sea lions, follow them.
We jump, we scream, we laugh. These are the best hunters of the ocean doing their thing right in front of us, just simple humans. A mixture of feelings bubble in my heart, my brain is all confused, I even feel dizzy.
Am I afraid of being in the water together with a pod of creatures that are at the very top of the food chain?
Am I just excited by the beauty of nature going on in front of my eyes?
Have I finally realized I am just another mortal animal, at the mercy of a huge, unified group of great hunters?
What do the other people in my panga think and feel?
Should we keep going, after the 4 or 5 orcas that swim northward together?
Human curiosity is more powerful than anything else, and we all want to see more, to learn more, and to absorb more.
So we follow. But orcas are much faster than our 4-stroke, 45-horsepower Zodiacs.
They had chased, they had caught, and they had eaten. They had done what they had to do, why to bother with these mortals seeking adventure? They finally disappeared in the blue ocean.
It is another sweet, tranquil sunny morning at Isabela Island. We have found a few fur seals on the rocks of Punta Vicente Roca, and we are ready to go back to the ship for Professor Bud Wobus’ geology lecture. Then the captain calls through the radio; “there is something kind of unusual on the port side of the Polaris”.
I grab my binoculars and look. There is a feeding frenzy. Frigates (40 at least) pick up bits from the water. Audubon shearwaters fly overhead, side by side with storm petrels that walk on the sea collecting something. Then we spot a fin, THE fin. A huge, upright, black orca fin.
It is a male. We distinguish pieces of carcass at the surface. The entrails of a creature of some kind. We spot another fin, probably a younger male orca. The frigates fight like crazy for bits of the carcass. The massive male orca comes up to the surface again. We are watching from just a few yards away.
All the other zodiacs approach. Sea lions seem not to understand what is going on, and like us, stay in the area watching.
It takes me a while to realize that we are in the middle of orcas hunting, and feeding.
The orcas leave, slowly move to the north. And we, like the sea lions, follow them.
We jump, we scream, we laugh. These are the best hunters of the ocean doing their thing right in front of us, just simple humans. A mixture of feelings bubble in my heart, my brain is all confused, I even feel dizzy.
Am I afraid of being in the water together with a pod of creatures that are at the very top of the food chain?
Am I just excited by the beauty of nature going on in front of my eyes?
Have I finally realized I am just another mortal animal, at the mercy of a huge, unified group of great hunters?
What do the other people in my panga think and feel?
Should we keep going, after the 4 or 5 orcas that swim northward together?
Human curiosity is more powerful than anything else, and we all want to see more, to learn more, and to absorb more.
So we follow. But orcas are much faster than our 4-stroke, 45-horsepower Zodiacs.
They had chased, they had caught, and they had eaten. They had done what they had to do, why to bother with these mortals seeking adventure? They finally disappeared in the blue ocean.
