Capt. Peter, Ashley and I spent the afternoon with "Spirit" and her boys today. A mother's love and authority are never in question and L22 gave a great demonstration of that. All was quiet and calm when we first arrived on scene. L79 "Skana" was doing his own thing and L22 "Spirit" was within sight, for us humans, but in her own space away from her son. They were moving at an exaggeratedly slow pace and "Skana" was above water for so long each time that he blew that we could see the small nick in the tip of his dorsal fin. The dives were long and there were some direction changes, but for the most part they seemed to be drifting with the currents.
Rather suddenly though, "Skana" and "Spirit" changed direction and sped up. They moved in side-by-side and were definitely traveling northwest. As we motored along trying to keep, we were surprised by another male orca that popped up right behind us. Nobody had seen him up until then. It was L85 "Mystery". He quickly joined the others, but then there was another and another! Suddenly we were watching a family of 5 orcas moving quickly through the waters on there way to somewhere important.
It is of course unclear to those of us above water how the decision to change direction and speed was made, much less who made it. But once the word went out, all of the family responded. With our resident orcas living in a matriarchal society, it makes sense that "Spirit" is the one that decides the who, how, when and where. It may be more diplomatic than that, but the decision was obviously agreed upon and/or followed by all involved.
We finally said goodbye to this proud family and wended our way back to Friday Harbor. Once at the dock we unloaded other proud families that had made many memories today as well as a connection with an intelligent and devoted species of the earth. So, from all of us at San Juan Safaris, thank you and we will...
See You In The Islands!
~Tristen, Naturalist
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