It's a really rare occurance but if you can believe it, Orcas have been spotted off the SoCal coast again!! I so would love to see these most impressive whales :yup:
First killer whales of the season spotted
DANA POINT – When avid whale watchers Elissa and Jody Thompson didn't see sea life during the first hour of their boat trip from Dana Point Harbor, they thought something was up.
"We come out at least once a week and you see pods of dolphins all the time," said Elissa Thompson, a marine biologist from Dana Point. "We came out and there was nothing. We (the boat's captain) tried to find a fin whale for about an hour but there was no sea life around. Generally, whenever there's a predator like a shark, that's what happens."
This time though, it wasn't a shark. It was a pod of at least 15 orcas, including what boat Capt. Tom Southern said was a 3-month-old baby whale. The pod was spotted outside Newport Beach Harbor Saturday afternoon.
The killer whales, rarely seen, were the first spotted this year, Southern said. They were swimming north in about 300 feet of water not far from the Newport Beach Harbor heading toward Huntington Beach.
"We saw something and went full speed ahead into six-foot waves," said Southern, a captain with Capt. Dave's Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari. "It was wild. Everyone was getting wet. They were jumping out of the water. First there was one, then two, then three and pretty soon it was 15, including a large male and a little baby. All of a sudden all of the whale-watching boats in the area pulled up.''
See the whole article and more photos here:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/whales-498960-boat-thompson.html